Note: since some of the following games comes with sequels, there maybe some unmarked spoilers regarding later games of the same series. You have been warned.

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In General

Certain games allowed the player to choose the protagonist's set of Spirit Commands via a birthday input at the start of the game. However, by entering the birthdate of "November 11" with a blood-type of "B" (both are based on the stats of current SRW series producer Takenobu Terada), the protagonist will be given a much better (and cheaper) Spirit Command list and a pilot skill that makes the earlier sections of the game trivial and late-game scenarios easier.

MAP weapons in games with a squad-based system (that is, Super Robot Wars Alpha 2, Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, Super Robot Wars Z and to a lesser extent, Super Robot Wars Original Generation, post-Continuity Reboot). MAP weapons do full damage to all units in the squad (in contrast to "ALL Attacks" in Alpha and Original Generation or "TRI Attacks" in Z, which have significant damage reduction the more enemies there are in a squad), can hit multiple squads AND the squad mechanics allows for abusing the "Zeal"note Gain an additional turn (self) or "Enable"note Gain an additional turn (any allied unit) Spirit Commands. Taken to obscene heights with the SRX Altered Banpreios and AS Alegrias from Alpha 3, who have powerful, post-movement MAP weapons (though with a relatively small range). However, it's the post-movement element that turns them into walking death machines, especially when one of the co-pilots in either mecha have the "Resupply" Spirit Commandnote Refill all ammo-based weapons and EN to max.

For some post-AlphaZeta Gundam incarnations, the Zeta WILL be the most effective Gundam and one of the most formidable real robots in the entire game, with Kamille Bidan having the highest stats of all Gundam pilots, as well as the Zeta having excellent stats of its own, usually even stronger than suits like the Nu Gundam (especially jarring and hilarious when the Nu and V2 Gundam in Universal Century canon are similarly gamebreaking). If the player obtains the Biosensor-powered attacks for the Zeta late in a game, expect them to be very powerful ("Waverider Crash" has higher damage potential than the "Moonlight Butterfly" in Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden; Z lowered the damage but gave Kamille higher stats). Z takes this up a notch with a Biosensor Super Mode for the Zeta, once the pilot's Will gets high enough, which makes it MORE unstoppable. Even with "Waverider Crash" removed in the Second Super Robot Wars Z: Hakai-hen, along with other returning units, it's still one of the best machines in the game.

Likewise, the Nu Gundam potentially is quite gamebreaking: in Z, though it's obtained midway into the game, it comes equipped with the Psycho Frame Super Mode and Amuro Ray knows the pilot skill "Attack Again" note If the defending enemy's skill stat is 20 points lower than the pilot's skill stat, the pilot may initiate a second attack in the same combat phase naturally and has the adequate skill stat to trigger it. In nearly all squad-based SRWs, the Nu (and unlockableHi-Nu Gundam) can blast entire squads away with little effort at long distances.

The Sound Force in all their appearances. Their simple ability to restore Spirit Points, increase Will and grant status buffs to allied pilots individually or groups alike is far more dangerous than it seems.

In Alpha 3, the songs "Power to the Dream" and "My Friends" enables Spirit Point restoration at once, and are available as a MAP variant. This means it's possible to set up an infinite Spirit Point restoration loop, allowing the player to destroy just about anything in one turn, particularly useful when it comes to scenarios where the Skill Point requires an objective to be completed within a certain amount of turns.

Super Robot Wars Destiny allows Basara's "Try Again"note Increase all of an ally's statssong to be used over and over again on the same unit, increasing its stats further and further each time. Combine with Mylene's "Planet Dance Sigma"note Raise an ally's accuracy/evasion stats, which costs little Song Energy to use, and the player can turn a single allied unit into a One-Man ArmyLightning Bruiser, dodging and hitting everything during counterattacks. Notably, this version of Song Energy is reduced into a Scrappy Mechanic (Song Energy cannot be refilled like EN; it regenerates 5 units per turn), until Alpha 3 rectified it; at the same time, Song Energy usage can be reduced with energy reduction equippable parts.

Although Basara is the only character available from Macross 7 in Saisei-hen, he takes the cake here compared to his previous appearances. Like the Protodeviln in Alpha 3, Dimensional Beasts take damage from songs, with the added punch it also lowers their Will. Here's the kicker: if any Vajra unit's Will dips below 120, they automatically flee the battlefield; in fact, if Basara is the one to do it, he earns TWICE the amount of experience and pilot points. Feel free to simply send him into a group of Vajra and watch as his pilot points skyrocket through the roof. His presence makes any scenarios consisting of Vajra an absolute cakewalk.

Even crazier are the MAP variants of the songs: "Planet Dance" is a MAP version of the "Trust" Spirit Commandnote Recover 2500 HP, "Totsugeki Love Heart" casts the "Rouse" Spirit Commandnote +5 Will to adjacent allies, "My Friends" restores Spirit Points and "Try Again" boosts stats (notably there's a cap this time for offensive/defensive stats and it doesn't stack with itself; commands issued by Lelouch Lamperouge though...). However, it's his new song "Dynamite Explosion" that blows every other song out of the water. By itself, the song grants the "Cheer"note Gain twice the amount of experience points for an ally and "Bless"note Gain twice the amount of credits earned for an ally Spirit Commands to allies; as his Song Energy climbs, the "Accelerate"note Increase pilot's movement range by 3 upon movement and "Alert"note Successfully evade the next attack Spirit Commands are added. However, if Basara casts the "Valor"note Deal twice the amount of damage for the next attack Spirit Command before belting out this tune, all allies affected RECEIVE VALOR FOR FREE. Truly, this is Theme Music Power-Up exemplified.

The Mazinkaiser in almost all games its in: a Lightning Bruiser that doesn't need a lot of Will or energy to perform effectively, versatile weapon setups, and "Mazinpower"note At 130 Will, +25% to damage increases damage output even higher. In most games it's in, it carries a near-exclusive ability to stack Critical Hitsand damage buffs. This applies (to a lesser extent) to Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. There's a good reason why damage increasing abilities become commonplace in present games, while critical hits no longer stack with buffs.

The Shin Getter is always an incredibly powerful unit. It typically comes with Hit Point and energy regeneration, powerful attacks, and the "Open Get" abilitynote At 120 Will, gain a 25% chance of evading any attack. The Getter-2 form has a higher mobility rate and in some games the "Mach Special" abilitynote At 130 Will, gain a 50% chance of evading any attack on top of "Open Get". Oh, and it has three pilots, all with good Spirit Commands and Spirit Point pools.

Shin Getter can be strong, but it generally suffers from considerable drawbacks: large EN and Will requirements for weapons, Crippling Overspecialization of its Getter-3 form, low accuracy and relative fragility in some installments (particularly Alpha Gaiden), and lack of good ALL or MAP weapons in squad-based games. Regarding chances of evasion, in the games where half the playable roster has better chances of evading attacks due to pilot stats and unit abilities, the Shin Getter isn't all that special ("Open Get" and "Mach Special" do not stack in most games, nor are their ability descriptions consistent). However, the combination of a balanced set of Spirit Commands and high offensive power is what makes Shin Getter what a late-game unit should be.

In any game with a squad-based system, it's easy to exploit the system as you can place more allied units clogged into one panel as an effective single unit.

Not only are MAP weapons rendered more effective in squad-based games (see above), since more enemy units are destroyed when using a MAP attack, this equates to a bigger profit earned through casting "Cheer" and "Bless". Naturally, Banpresto took note of this and present day installments reduced the amount of experience points and credits earned through MAP weapons.

Having squad-based mechanics means more allied units can be deployed in scenarios, leading to easier access to Will gains, but it also gives players a larger list of Spirit Commands to use. Players can place these extra units as an extra set of Spirit Commands to make up for another characters' flaws and weaknesses, providing them with the support-based Spirit Commands needed, such as HP/EN recovery, boosting Will and accuracy/evasion buffs.

Certain abuse of squad mechanics depend on the game itself. The "Chain Attack" system in Super Robot Wars K had no damage penalties whatsoever, allowing much faster Will gains, while the squad system in Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 allowed for a maximum of 4 units in a single squad, which meant the ability to group several multi-pilot units together, enabling a vast pool of Spirit Commands at the squad's disposal. Most useful when you consider units in the latter games being able to "MAP nuke" scenarios repeatedly if grouped with pilots having "Zeal" and "Enable".

In older games, a Combining Mecha retains its movement for the turn it is formed, so long as the primary pilot of this combining unit has not moved yet. For example, in Original Generation, since the R-1 is the primary combining unit of the SRX, the R-2 Powered and R-3 Powered can move and perform their actions before the R-1 can combine with them without using up a turn to do it. This "SRX Trick" allows the player to manipulate the R-Units' Combination Attack "R-Formation" with the R-2 and R-3 first, then have the R-1 combine to form the SRX and attack again, which can be repeated with "Zeal" and "Resupply", since the SRX pilots have it. Another variation of this trick involves the "Fury" Spirit Commandnote The next successful attack bypasses any barrier the enemy has from the pilot of the R-2. With the appropriate weapon, the player can deal Standard Status Effects against bosses.

Another example of this abuse are the Valguard and the Ryu Robots from Super Robot Wars Wnote The former made unique by the fact the primary pilot of the Valstork is considered the "core" of the Valguard, yet it is the pilot of the Valhawk who controls the Valguard upon combining, the latter due to the Ryu's access to an extremely useful support-based Spirit Commands and Combination Attack and Gaiking The Great from Super Robot Wars Knote Useful to make up for its absurd EN cost of its weapons. That being said, this combination trick no longer exists in current games such as Super Robot Wars L, where players cannot seperate any Combining Mecha after they are formed.

In most of its appearances, the Daitarn 3 is a size "2L" (the same as most battleships). On top of its already large HP pool, the Daitarn's size means the unit can deal and tank damage from the majority of small enemy units. What puts it as great is pilot Banjo Haran almost always has access to the rare "Soul" Spirit Command note Deal 2.5 times the damage for the next attack. Its ability to move faster in scenarios by changing into the "Dai-Fighter" configuration is also nice. Additionally, beginning with Super Robot Wars 64, the Daitarn can use the powerful "Space Combination Attack" with the titular unit from its brother series Zambot 3. While this Combination Attack is removed in the Second Z, the Daitarn gains two new combinations with Zambot 3 and Trider G7.

Aura Battlers, particularly those used by series protagonist Shou Zama, are some of the earliest SRW Game Breakers: evasive, great movement range, and their pitiful HP and armor entices the dimwitted AI to surround them and fruitlessly attempt to shoot them down. If that isn't enough, Aura Battlers often come equipped with the unit ability "Aura Barrier", which is exceptionally great at reducing beam-type weaponry dealt by certain types of enemies most likely to hit them, the "Hyper Aura Cutter" attack almost deals super robot levels of damage (even though Aura Battlers are classified as reals), and its pilots usually have a sub-pilot in the form of a fairy, adding a second set of Spirit Commands. Banpresto eventually caught on, Nerfing Aura Battlers in future reappearances like Super Robot Wars Impact, reducing the effectiveness of Aura Barrier and including systems preventing units from ever becoming as powerful as they were in the earliest games.

The "V-Up"/"W-Up" equippable parts work by increasing a unit's statistics or weapon strength based on the number of parts slots a unit has, the idea being that support units, who often have three or four slots and a less-than-average pilot, will be able to keep up with their peers and their robots, who usually have two slots. In nearly every game with these items, there is at least one unit that has more parts slots than it needs that is part of a franchise where their unimpressive default pilot can be swapped with a statistically better pilot (usually the series' protagonist). The RX-78-2 Gundam and Boss Borot in Super Robot Wars Advance are two such examples, since not only can they be upgraded to max (both are available at the start of the game), but they gain tremendous stat and weapon boosts with these parts. Naturally, it didn't take very many games for Banpresto to rectify this by getting rid of them entirely.

In fact, Banrpresto did anticipate how exploitable the V-Up part could be in the Super Robot Wars Compact games and attempted to balance them by giving likely candidates "worthless" pre-upgrades. For example, the Gundam NT-1 Alex starts with slightly lower stats than the Zeta Gundam, with only six ranks of unit upgrades rather than the usual ten. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact this unit can equip up to four parts, this winds up not working in favor of the NT-1.

Provided players have patience, they can resort to Level Grinding in the games by having allied units with MAP weapons hit allies, then use pilots in units with the "Repair" command to heal damaged allied units, since Experience Points are also earned; to help speed up the process, some installments offer the "Repair Skill"note Increase the "Repair" command's effect by 50% and its range by 1 for pilot skill purchasing. While this is hardly superb, most titles allow players to transfer characters from their default machine into these repair-based units without any restrictions, such as swapping Kamille out of the Zeta Gundam into the Methuss, which almost always comes equipped with the "Repair Device/Equipment/Module" unit ability that allows the "Repair" command. Slightly Nerfed beginning with the Third Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-hen where MAP weapons are rendered unusable unless there's an enemy within range of the MAP weapon.

In fact, this method makes the character roster in the first Z avert Magikarp Power, provided Setsuko Ohara is the protagonist of the game. It's not uncommon to see players exploit this and reach the level 99 Cap for pilots after a scenario or two following their appearance; additionally, it makes Setsuko's route much easier by the time the "ZEUTH vs. ZEUTH" scenario happens, as her party can easily pull a Curb-Stomp Battle against the opposition. Furthermore, Turn A Gundam characters appear in Setsuko's route earlier and they're able to use the Methuss without any restrictions like their Universal Century characters.

To make the grind easier and safer, players can cast the "Mercy" Spirit Commandnote If the pilot's next attack with their unit destroys a target, reduce target's Hit Point to 10 instead, provided the target's skill stat is lower than the pilot's to reduce Hit Points to the lowest possible, thereby allowing characters to maximize the amount of experience earned when using Repair.

Super Robot Wars Advance

For a battleship, which is supposed to be an unwieldy support ship, the Nadesico from the original Game Boy Advance version (not the remake) is a game breaker with the appropriate upgrades. With a fully upgraded "Gravity Blast", it's capable of dealing over 10000 points of damage per shot with almost 100% accuracy at max Will, firing at ranges that will make super robots turn green with envy (with appropriate upgrades, the range can extend to 11 (!)). Coupled with the "Distortion Field" barriernote Reduce all non-beam, non-gravity damage by 50%; beam and gravity attacks under 3000 and 5000 points of damage, respectively, are negated, it can take out the Final Boss in two turns (using "Support Attack"note Pilot can provide offensive support to an adjacent ally to get in extra shots). Later games probably took note of this and forced the player to upgrade all weapons simultaneously, making game breakers such as this much more difficult.

The Soulgain, or really, any of the original mecha due to Axel Almer/Lamia Loveless' high level of "Support Attack", a cheap "Strike" Spirit Commandnote Gain perfect accuracy for one turn, an "Ace Bonus"note A unique, passive upgrade for the pilot upon achieving 50 kills boosting damage by 20% at 130 Will, and their naturally high melee and ranged stats. Pump the appropriate stat and the mech's weapons and players have a unit punching far above its own weight simply by supporting other units. In fact, the change in difficulty between when they are present vs. scenarios where they aren't available is palpable at times. Note that stat boosting and the "Ace Bonus" only applies to the remake, as the original had neither.

The remake allowed for some potentially game breaking hijinks, due to strong "Ace Bonuses" and powerful "Full Upgrade Bonuses", along with the customizable pilot skill system. What keeps it from reaching W levels is the remake ascended the difficulty to Nintendo Hard, as a result of the new mechanic "evasion decay"note As a unit is attacked, its evasion rate is decreased every time it is targeted; depending on the game, defensive stats may also be affected.

Super Robot Wars Alpha

The first game has the Dancougar, which not only has high offensive power at its disposal, but also has four pilots, all of whom carry "Valor". To make it even better, all of its pilots have a skill that increases Dancougar's damage by 25% at 130 Will. Finally, if the player decides to spend credits upgrading the "Dankuuken" attack, the "Dankuukougaken" attack is unlocked; by that time, there's basically no boss the Dancougar can't perform a One-Hit KO on.

In Alpha, two units shared the highest damage output in the game. The first is the SRX/R-Gun Powered Combination Attack that can One-Hit Kill the Final Boss, but can only be unlocked through multiple steps across multiple stages, and is only available for the last stretch of the gamenote While it technically isn't a combination, the SRX unlocks the attack provided the player receives the R-Gun with Levi Tolar piloting it instead of Viletta Vadim, although it's still possible to do it with Viletta, albeit a bit harder. The second unit, which is easier to access, is the RyuKoOh, the mandatory Mid-Season Upgrade in the super robot route. By using the Spirit Command manipulation trick via the birthday input at the start of the game (see above), the player's chosen protagonist gains the Spirit Command "Sacrifice"note Pilot will deal 3 times the damage in the next attack with an auto-critical hit, but cannot dodge any attacks for the rest of the turn. With "Sacrifice" cast and using the RyuKoOh's strongest attack at max weapon upgrade, a One-Hit Kill is possible against any boss for the rest of the game, including the Final Boss, AND any bosses in-between that automatically escape at low HP thresholds. For extra breakage, RyuKoOh is a two-seater, meaning players can give the secondary protagonist the same birthday, and have him/her cast the Spirit Command "Miracle"note Pilot gains +30 to Will and the effects of the "Guts" (Recover HP to full), "Accelerate", "Strike", "Luck" (Gain twice the amount of credits earned), "Alert", and "Soul" Spirit Commands to earn credits or experience points, or the Spirit Command "Iron Wall"note Take 25% damage from all enemy attacks for one turn for defense.

The Evangelion Unit-01 and the "Tem Ray Circuit" equippable part can become this for all the wrong reasons in Alpha. The part decreases unit mobility and movement, but also reduces repair costs to 10 credits. If the Unit-01 is destroyed in any scenario, it enters into its "Berserk Mode", becoming hostile and attacking everything indiscriminately. By equipping the Evangelion with the "Tem Ray Circuit", the player can intentionally destroy it with a MAP attack (preferably Bright Noah in whatever battleship he's in, since its MAP attack can hit friendly units) and earn an extra 40,000 credits. At the same time, the player can simply sic the rampaging Unit-01 loose on the enemy.

Ideon in Alpha 3. Banpresto removed the whole "Berserk" system from it (unlike its Super Robot Wars Fcounterpart), making it insanely easier to use. Simply slap on the "Iron Wall" Spirit Command from one of its sub-pilots (provided they have unlocked it), send it towards Mooks and have it defend rather than attack. Every time the Ideon is hit, the invisible "Ide Gauge" will rise; once it hits max, it unlocks infinite EN and access to the "Ideon Sword" and "Ideon Gun" attacks, whose base damage exceeds 9999note Statistically, both weapons' attack values are estimated to be in the 10,000 range. Additionally, since the Ideon is taking enough damage by defending, provided its HP is less than 30%, the MAP variants of the "Ideon Sword" and "Ideon Gun" will also be available. As per its series, the attack range for both weapons stretch to infinity, with the latter able to cover the entire map due to its cone-shaped attack configuration.

Alpha Gaiden has several: in addition to Daitarn 3 (see above), Raideen has some of the best stats of any Super Robot (including high mobility, which supers aren't supposed to have) and "God Voice", one of the strongest attacks in the game. For real robots, there's the Gundam X Divider and Zeta Gundam, the former having high mobility with low EN consumption and long range for its powerful "Harmonica Cannon". For the latter, you only have to max out the machine's EN; all it really needs are mobility-enhancing parts like a "Biosensor"note Increase mobility by 10 and limit by 15 or "Psycho Frame"note Increase mobility by 10 and limit by 30 and a "Booster" partnote Increase movement by 1, then watch as Kamille's evasion stat does the rest. In a game where credits are scarce, these two machines need few upgrades compared to others. It helps later in the game, the Zeta receives a mandatory upgrade to its core stats and unlocks the "Waverider Crash".

"Haro" parts, as usualnote In Alpha Gaiden, "Haro" parts grant +2 movement, +25 mobility, +35 unit accuracy and +35% weapon accuracy, but a notable gamebreaker part in Alpha Gaiden is the "HPHGCP"note Recover 30% of a unit's max EN at the start of a turn; in fact, you can get three of these. Put one on the Shin Getter to fuel its "Stoner Sunshine" attack, one for the Gundam Double X + G-Falcon (provided the player unlocks the G-Bits), and the last one depending on player preference, such as the Wing Gundam Zero to solve its EN problem, the GP03 Dendrobinum Orchis for its powerful EN weaponry or the Mazinkaiser, to make an already powerful unit more effective by allowing two free "Fire Blasters" per turn.

The Gundam Double X in Alpha Gaiden, due to a glitch where instead of eight rounds, its stronger than usual beam rifle has somewhere around 30 shots, which is fixed if Tifa Adill and the G-Bits are acquired. However, the player can still break the game after the bug is fixed due any equippable parts on the G-Falcon working while it's combined with the Double X, granting the machine two additional part slots while boosting its stats. Put a "Haro" part on the Double X and the previously mentioned "HPHGCP" on the G-Falcon after the G-Bits are obtained for an unstoppable unit with infinite G-Bits.

One unit generally declared useless along with the rest of the originals in Alpha Gaiden (except for SangerZonvolt) is Ryusei Date and his R-1 Custom. It's actually a case of Magikarp Power, provided the player bothers to level him up to where his "Telekinesis" pilot ability reaches pass level 6note For every level upwards to 9, increase accuracy and evasion stats. This gives him a large accuracy/evasion stat boost that makes him nigh untouchable to even the Final Bosses when combined with his "Guts" pilot skillnote All stats are increased when HP hits critical. The R-1 Custom has three part slots, but Ryusei needs one "Psycho Frame" part to do this, something even Kamille and the Zeta can't match. The downside is the R-1's damage is pitiful, but in this Nintendo Hard game, that isn't as much of an issue so long as it can survive.

Mazinkaiser in Alpha Gaiden has nice armor and HP, coupled with small HP regeneration, it can dodge rather well thanks to its awesome terrain rating and evasion comparable to low-tier Gundams and an acceptable mobility, further boosted by Koji Kabuto's "Accelerate" Spirit Command. Its attacks are so strong it's capable of outdoing fully upgraded units (something downright impossible to achieve without hours of Level Grinding on a single unit), which is further enchanced by Mazinpower. All of its attacks don't have Will requirements, and all of the useful ones have great range with relatively small EN consumption in comparison to the damage it deals note Fire Blaster costs 60 EN; by comparison, Stoner Sunshine, which is weaker thanks to Mazinpower, uses 90. By upgrading armor and HP a bit, and its weapon (and possibly EN, if you want to spam Fire Blaster), slap on an armor-increasing part and send it to the crowds. Watch as it does five digits of damage casually.

By the same respect, Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. As usual, Mazingers have good armor ratings and high damage output thanks to Mazinpower, but its greatest use is the Rocket Punch, which has a nice range, good terrain rating and completely free of EN, making it an extremely useful weapon for all sorts of situations. The best part is both are available early in the game and a reliable choice until the end. The catch is while Great Mazinger makes the entirety of early- to mid-game (barring a few number of scenarios) a cruel joke, Tetsuya Tsurugi lacks the "Alert" Spirit Command to handle late-game bosses, and Mazinger Z lacks a good pilot (since Kouji Kabuto will be using the Mazinkaiser). However, by that time the rest of the team has caught up in terms of upgrades and units available. Even if you decide not to upgrade the Mazinger Z, one late-game scenario forces the player to use the machine against an army of Mechanical Beasts alone. Its one of the easiest parts in the entire game, which is saying something in a Nintendo Hard game.

Any Super Robot with multiple pilots, most of which are Combining Mecha in Alpha Gaiden, most prominently Getter Robo, Voltes V and Combattler V. In a game where managing Spirit Commands are essential, these units carry at least three pilots with a multitude of Spirit Commands per pilot, on top of powerful attacks for their units. As a bonus, they have the ability to split into several forms. While it seems to be a useless gimmick, one of the pilots in each unit has "Alert", making it key against That One Boss, who also uses Spirit Commands that plagues 80% of the late-game. Additionally, Voltes and Combattler can repair itself with one of their forms, making them a repair-, battle- and Spirit Command-based unit, all in one package.

Since movement in all SRW games expends EN (1 panel of movement = 1 EN), due to a case of Good Bad Bug in Alpha 2, if all units in a squad can fly, they can regain EN simply by moving to a designated spot on the map, then immediately cancel the movement before the squad reaches its destinationnote For example, the squad can move a maximum of 10 panels. The player selects the 10th panel to move into, but cancels the movement just as the squad reaches the 9th panel. All units in the squad regain 9 EN. In other words, EN is rejuvenated for the movement "travelled". Adding to this, the same bug isn't fixed in Alpha 3.

Super Robot Wars BX

Although it was barely advertised, Super Robot Wars BX features the "Inspire System", which grants stat boosts to units based on their proximity to other units. In practice, if players bunch allied units up together adjacently, they will gain incredibly high accuracy/evasion rates, to the extent where even the Boss Borot has a 0% chance of getting hit. Sound familiar? The "Inspire System" is essentially the GC version of the "Friendship System" (see that section for more information).

The Glitter Falsaber has become a close challenger to the Valzacard as one of the strongest Original Generation mecha to date. While its "component units" are decent on their own, the Glitter Falsaber takes the best of partner bonusesnote Increase critical hit rate +10/+15/+20/+30, armor rating +100/+125/+150/+200, accuracy +5/+10/+20/+30 and mobility +5/+10/+20/+30 at bonus level 1/2/3/4. However, the unit barely scratches the surface when it has the exclusive "All Treasures" unit ability during Scenario 37: any time the player's turn begins, all four pilots of the Glitter Falsaber recover 10 Spirit Points and the unit regenerates 10% maximum EN, and at 130 Will, increase damage dealt by 10%. If the Falsaber ever takes damage, it auto-regenerates Hit Pointss roughly equal to 25% of its maximum HP, effectively No Selling attacks. Finally, it stacks with any other unit abilities given to it that has the same effect. This means the Glitter Falsaber is self-sufficient enough to be a One-Man Army. Did we also mention the machine's two strongest attacks automatically bypasses barriers, with the strongest also having a built-in "Ignore Size Modifier"? The only downside is prior to triggering an event in the final scenario for the game (both the normal and "true" routes), the Glitter Falsaber is unavailable.

After a eight year hiatus, Nadesico returns, and with it the eponymous battleship. A large portion of allied and enemy units in BX are at best an "M" size; the Nadesico at "2L" size means greater damage and defensive capabilities than it should (unless it's the Grancieres), backed by main pilot Yurika Misumaru and her "IFS" pilot skillnote Increase all pilot stats as Will increases. Although the ship's "Gravity Blast" attack has a pricy EN cost, the ship now carries EN regeneration (which only the Y-Unit had in Judgment) and has a partner bonus that boosts EN by 50 at level 2 (75 at level 3, 100 at max level). Unlike its previous incarnations, the Nadesico lacks a MAP version of "Gravity Blast", but it regains it once the Y-Unit is unlocked in Scenario 29, alongside the stronger "Phase Transition Cannon" attack and its MAP version. To cap it off, the battleship is available as early as Scenario 5 with sub-pilots Ruri Hoshino, Minato Haruka and Megumi Reinard to help with Spirit Commands.

While the Nadesico Y-Unit's "Phase Transition Cannon" is a very powerful MAP weapon, it's only the second best in the game. In Scenario 41, the AGE-1 Gransa is unlocked, but isn't a particularly amazing unit due to high EN costs for its weaponry. However, this scenario also unlocks the "Triple Generation" Combination Attack with the Gundam AGE-FX and Gundam AGE-2 Dark Hound, one of the strongest attacks in BX, and the Gransa's "Plasma Diver Missile", bar none the most powerful attack in the game at a whopping base damage of 9999note Like the Ideon Gun from Alpha 3, actual base damage is much higher than the game states, both as a normal attack and a wide-ranged MAP weapon. Finally, the Gransa's pilot Flit Asuno gets the "Soul" Spirit Command, which, despite its Nerf from the Third Super Robot Wars Znote "Soul" is now standardized to deal 2.2 times the damage rather than 2.5 times, makes it one of the best boss and Mook killers in BX. Although "Plasma Diver Missile" is a single-round use weapon applied to both normal and MAP versions, this can be easily remedied via a resupply-based unit or allied Spirit Commands. To put this into perspective, the MAP version of "Plasma Diver Missile" is the second-strongest MAP weapon in the franchise next to the Alpha 3 "Ideon Gun" since the latter has infinite range.

King J-Der has had a bad rap throughout its SRW appearances, always joining late in a playthrough, making its immense power difficult to use. Not so in BX, where it's available a little over halfway into the game in Scenario 28. Despite GaoGaiGar Final not being around to give the unit its fourth pilot or the "J-Phoenix" attack, and certain weapons being cut from previous games, the unit still a long-range, 20-round attack that can One-Hit Kill most Mooks in the game at five ranks of weapon upgrades (even a decent chunk from mini-bosses). It's much dodgier than one might expect thanks to the return of the "Brave" pilot skillnote Increase accuracy, armor, critical hit and evasion ratings; this effect increases at higher levels for Soldat J and, like most super robots, is a tanker, where only bosses are the ones able to break past its "Generating Armor" unit abilitynote Reduces all damage by 1500 points; costs 10 EN to activate; plus, Ikumi "Arma" Kaidou and Tomoro 0117 serve as J's usual sub-pilots. The problem is King J-Der permanently leaves the party in Scenario 45 when there are a few levels left in the game, unless players ensured J defeats the Arm Primeval in Scenario 42 and surpasses a specific combined kill count with Gai Shishioh by Scenario 45.

SD Gundam Gaiden reminds us that Super Robot Warsalways hada problem withbalancing "SS" sized units. Most were untouchable by enemies, exceptionally EN efficient and tends to hit really hard despite their size, yet a well-placed attack is more than enough to put their Hit Points into the red. Fighter ZZ in BX is notable for being one of the best tankers in the game, while Wizard Nu is a long-ranged fighter with some strong attacks and a partner bonusnote A max level partner bonus from the Nu increases accuracy by 30, EN +150, +2 weapon range and base damage for all ranged-weapons up by 300 that compliments the myriad of other long-ranged fighters in BX (AGE-1 Gransa comes to mind), though is held back because it joins late in Scenario 41. Meanwhile, Knight Gundam earns the "Full Armor Knight Gundam" attack in Scenario 26 only to lose it a few stages later when it upgrades into the Vassal Knight Gundam, of which its "Knight Superior Dragon" attack is locked until Scenario 44. Fortunately, the change into Vassal Knight comes with a permanent +5 boost to all of its pilot stats, making it statistically one of the best pilots in BX; additionally, by completing certain requirements, a Secret Character can be unlocked as a useful sub-pilot for the Vassal Knight in the late-game.

Unfortunately, these Gundams fall prey to a Good Bad Bug: much like Demonbane in UX, their EN gauge is replaced with Magic Points, which increases its maximum upon level up. Because of the bug, they lose maximum MP earned post-level 50 due to the in-game formula changing, only gaining it more slowly afterwards. Luckily, the SD Gundam attacks aren't energy guzzlers and they carry MP regeneration.

On the subject of unit abilities, while BX does not have "Nerve Crack", "Quantum Burst"note At 150+ Will, for 80 EN, lower enemy stats by 30 and increase allied stats by 30 for one turn; this effect can be stacked and "Dance of Wings"note At 130+ Will, for 80 EN, enemies in the affected area cannot perform any action for one turn are still available and as overpowering from UX. This time around, the game introduces new abilities such as the GaoGaiGar's "Dividing Driver"note For 50 EN, allied terrain ratings become S ranks and enemy terrain ratings decrease by one rank for one turn; this effect does not apply to weapon terrain ratings and "Gatling Driver"note For 60 EN, enemies in the affected area cannot move for one turn, Mike Sounders the 13th's "Disk-P"note For 30 EN, allied units in the affected area gain +10 Will and Knight Alex's "Lavium"note At 130+ Will, for 50 MP, restore all Hit Points to all allied units.

Super Robot Wars Destiny

The Garland sports a high evasion rate and small size in a game that greatly favors having both. As a bonus, it's the cheapest unit to upgrade in the game and has four parts slots. The same applies to ZarmeSow, but to a much lesser extent (the Garland doesn't use energy; the Zarme Sow does).

Every Universal Century Gundam. Not only is Destiny balanced to favor reals over supers, in stark contrast to most entries of the franchise, it also has a series roster that provide multitudes of useful reals. However, Amuro, Judau Ashta, Usso Evin, and Kamille stand above the rest.

Amuro is a great pilot with great stats, with the powerful Nu Gundam having good range and amount of ammunition. If Amuro earns enough kills (something very easy to do with Basara around) and take a specific route in the game, he gains the Nu Gundam HWS, a semi-Mid-Season Upgrade for the Nu, carrying an extra powerful attack that can go through even towards the end (considering it's a pretty early upgrade, the HWS is a Disc-One Nuke of sorts). All this is before receiving the mandatory Hi-Nu Gundam.

Judau is basically Amuro with a different set of Spirit Commands and a more powerful Gundam ZZ, offensively speaking. As with Amuro, giving him enough kills (which is a matter of Basara again, but switching Judau into the Nu Gundam) grants him the Full-Armored Gundam ZZ.

Usso starts with the mediocre Victory Gundam, but gets the V2 Gundam with strong attacks and good stats. Later on, it gets the V2 Assault and V2 Buster Mecha Expansion Packs; by taking the proper routes, the Assault Buster can be unlocked. While the packs are good in their own right, the Assault Buster is a bonafide Lightning Bruiser with three MAP attacks. Oh, and unlike most Gundam protagonists in SRW (aside from Garrod), Usso has a sub-pilot, granting him access to a second set of Spirit Commands.

Kamille begins with the rather mediocre Zeta Gundam, which is pretty much an inferior Nu Gundam in Destiny. However, he winds up having the best stats out of any Newtype Gundam pilot in the game, including balanced offensive stats and the highest "Newtype" pilot skill levelnote For every level upwards to 9, increase accuracy and evasion rates; at higher levels, increase weapon range of Newtype-powered attacks. Finally, at "Newtype" level 5, the Zeta unlocks "Waverider Crash", the strongest weapon of any Gundam unit in Destiny that can be used post-movement, making it a solid choice if players wants to keep Kamille in the Zeta.

The Ra Cailum battleship begins the game with nukes in its arsenal: 3 normal rounds and one shot as a MAP attack, but if the player gives it the "Super Large Magazine" equippable partnote Gain twice the amount of ammunition for the unit's weapons, the unit becomes more efficient to use than the Battle 7 and its "Macross Cannon" attack. Although the La Kailum only has Bright as its pilot, he starts with the second-highest amount of Spirit Points in the game, is the only allied character to max out the "Prevail" pilot skillnote The lower the HP, the greater the increase to accuracy/evasion/critical/armor stats, and learns the "Love" Spirit Commandnote Gain the effects of the "Accelerate", "Strike", "Alert", "Valor", "Spirit", "Gain" and "Luck" Spirit Commands for one turn. As noted by a Yonkoma, apparently Bright can launch "Nuclear Missiles of Love".

The Vayeate carries a 1-6 ranged, post-movement "Beam Cannon" with respectable attack power at 20 EN per shot, making it a go-to unit for fast strikes instead of relying on a character having pilot skills like "Hit & Away"note If the pilot attacks first without moving, the pilot's unit can still move after attacking, in a game where a range of 1-4 is considered standard for reals; other Mobile Suit Gundam Wing units lean towards a 1-3 range. Similarly, the Mercurius and its "Crash Shield" is a 1-3 ranged, physical attack with reasonable power, no EN or Will requirements and the unit has the beam-dampening "Planet Defensors", though it's only marginally better than the Gundams in this regard.

The weapons for Milia Fallyna Jenius and her VF-1J Valkyrie upgrade at the cheapest rate, but has a high limit - on the first playthrough, its attack power at max upgrades beats out the likes of the Battle 7, provided the player acquires reaction-based weapons by taking a certain route. Her Valkyrie even carries four parts slots.

Two words: Sound Force. The status buffs provided by their songs are so broken that they are, for all intents and purposes, in-game cheat codes. Since the effects of their songs stack with each other, having Basara and Mylene sing a few evasion boosting songs to high mobility units like the Garland and the Gundams and they'll become literally untouchable, even by the final boss. In fact, the reason why the Sound Force got nerfed in subsequent games is largely because of how broken they were in Destiny.

Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier

The first game gives us Reiji Arisu, the party's strongest attacker, who carries the "Soul"note In the Endless Frontier games, "Soul" deals twice the damage for the next attack, rather than 2.5 times and "Swift"note Perform the first action on the next turn, regardless of allied/enemy speed Spirit Commands. He's preceded by Haken Browning later in the game, who combines a more modest "Valor" Spirit Commandnote In the Endless Frontier games, "Valor" deals 50% more damage for the next attack, instead with his Special Skill "Rampage Specter". No Mooks can survive it, while end-game bosses will get a significant portion of their HP chipped away because of it.

In the sequel, Reiji gets the Special Skills "Arisu Ryuu Tenchi Shinmei"note Refill 50-100 Spirit Points to the party and "Arisu Ryuu Ura Kimon Kaihou"note Gain the effects of "Swift" for the party. Combined with newcomer Aledy Nassh and his "Aspire" Spirit Commandnote Refill the Frontier Gauge to 100%, the player can create a loop that gives infinite Spirit Points to the team. Also consider that Reiji has the "Friendship" Spirit Commandnote Recover 30% HP to the party, and add Haken's "Canfield" Special Skillnote Gain the effects of "Alert" (all enemy attacks will miss for one turn) to the mix, only the latter parts of the Bonus Dungeon can pose a threat to the party.

Back in the first game, Haken has a 100% critical hit setup alongside "Jackpot", one of his attacks that's extremely easy to chain to avoid "Forced Evasion". The developers likely noticed this, so Nerfed the critical setup and "Jackpot" for EXCEED. In return, he gains the Spirit Command "Co-Op"note Personal support can be activated twice and "Support Attack" is granted an additional use and the Special Skill "Canfield", all of which is learned relatively early. Later, Haken learns the attack "Quad Solitaire", which is bar none the strongest attack in the game, and still retains his absurdly high critical hit rate. Having Haken in the party gives the player a powerful damage dealer, a decent Frontier Gauge filler and an almost sure fire way to make the majority of boss fights a total joke.

Don't forget that in the first game, using the 100% critical hit setup bypasses the need for casting "Valor" when using Rampage Specter, AND the setup ALSO boosts teammates' critical hits by 20% (15% in EXCEED).

Princess Suzuka in EXCEED gets the attack "Jyaki-GUN Ghost Dance", which seems mediocre on its own. However, with a "Support Attack" that holds the enemy in place (Xiaomu and T-elos, for example), they'll instead be hit repeatedly, chaining for an exceptionally long attack string. Combine this with "Co-Op" to allow T-elos to trigger "Support Attack" twice and Suzuka's "Passion" Spirit Commandnote Double the rate the Frontier Gauge fills up, the player can repeat this three times per turn, dealing high damage and filling the Frontier Gauge to 100% in one go.

KOS-MOS counts, to a lesser degree, in the first game: not only is she a very capable fighter and among the sturdiest of the party, she comes with the "Bond" Spirit Commandnote Recover 30% HP to the party, more economic than Reiji's "Friendship" ("Bond" costs 40 Spirit Points; "Friendship" costs 30), and the "Attune" Spirit Commandnote Allied characters will not achieve "guard" or "miss" when attacking for one turn, further maximizing the party's damage. Also take note that when KOS-MOS joins the party, she starts with the "Fury" Spirit Commandnote In the Endless Frontier games, "Fury" auto-breaks enemy guard on the first attack, to which Kaguya Nanbu learns it later at a higher cost (25 Spirit Points to KOS-MOS' 15). Combined with her moveset, KOS-MOS can tear through mooks and most bosses. The only problem is learning how to juggle her combos effectively, which is relatively easy to overcome; unfortunately, the other setback is she's the slowest character in the party.

Xiaomu is the only character without a multi-target Overdrive, but is compensated by being the only character who can hit any enemy (including bosses) with Standard Status Effects, provided it doesn't prevent them from taking turns ("Paralysis" and "Stun", for example). Flunky BossesDokugozu and Dokumezu and the Jotun siblings are otherwise normally immune to status ailments. Also, she has the "Uranai"note Cast a random Spirit Command for a party member and the "Daunt" Spirit Commandsnote Lower enemy E. Gauge by 50%.

Item usage in general for both games: proper use of items supported by COM-restoration items can significantly reduce game difficulty, mainly thanks to the fact that you can use as many items as the COM bar allows you to.

Super Robot Wars GC/XO

While using units to tank is a bit difficult in Super Robot Wars GCnote Proficient tankers don't appear until Scenario 33, and even then reliable ones are the usual Mazinkaiser/Great Mazinger duo, nearly every scenario features good terrain (+20% to accuracy/evasion rates at the lowest, +30% at the highest, alongside 10% HP/EN regeneration and one-round ammunition restocking). Simply turtle on such terrain and have long-range units take out enemies. Due to this and the revamped Ace mechanics, range plays a large part in what GC classifies as a good unit (there are exceptions to this, however).

Invariably, this makes Judau and his Gundam ZZ the best long-ranged unit in the game: the "Hi-Mega Cannon" is the strongest attack of any Mobile Suit with exceptional range, with damage augmented by Judau having the "Soul" Spirit Command. Should Judau get flanked by enemy attack, not to worry: like many of its appearances, the ZZ has a high armor rating. Its only weakness in GC is being slightly worse at evasion compared to other Gundams, but given its sniper duties, that's hardly a concern when the ZZ can more than tank attacks.

GC brings a few new things to the table, most of which can be abused, but none more so than the new "Skill Ace System". In a similar vein to the Stat Grinding system used in the SaGa series, The Elder Scrolls series and Final Fantasy II, a pilot earns stat bonuses the more they perform a specific action: attack 100 times using melee? +10 to melee, +5% to accuracy and +1 to movement. Get hit 100 times? +10 to defense and unit's armor rating increases by 10%. Use Spirit Commands 100 times? Increase Spirit Points by 10 and lower the cost of Spirit Commands by 10%. Additionally, the old Ace system of achieving 50 kills returns in five flavors, depending on the number of killsnote At 50 kills, +5 to Will at the start of a scenario and earn 10% more credits; for every 50 kills afterwards, +5 to Will (+10 beginning at 150 kills) and earn 10% more credits. Through careful manipulation, these bonuses can seriously augment an already good unit into something easily challenging. The only issue is due to a glitch, sub-pilots cannot take advantage of the "Skill Ace System" (this only applies to "actual" sub-pilots; if they have stats, they don't have this glitch). This is fixed in the Super Robot Wars XO port, making multi-pilot units like the Final Dancougar, Braiger, Baxinger and Sasuraiger more powerful.

Another thing is how the "Friendship System" works. Typically, the system provides minor boosts to various stats for pilots by placing them adjacent to fellow pilots from their own series. In GC, anyone in the party can become friends with someone from another series (it's still unknown how this specifically works). In other words, if the player places an emphasis on evading attacks, they can end up with a group of Fragile Speedsters with stat boosts extending to +40% to accuracy/evasion rates. Naturally, the "Friendship System" is overhauled following GC.

The "Capturing System" isn't something most players will particularly use against bosses (except for size "2L" units and battleships), and can be a hindrance, especially during late-game scenarios when trying to fend off enemy waves and having an allied battleship capture the unit. On the other hand, knowing which enemy unit to capture will serve as a benefit, including those that can be sold for a high cost (at twice the amount instead of destroying it), turned into a rare equippable part (one late-game enemy unit can be captured and turned into a "Haro"note In GC, "Haro" parts grant +25 to accuracy, +20 to mobility and +2 to weapon range) or in some cases keeping them for subsequent playthroughs.

It's fitting the first game with Final Dancougar would be formidable. The Black Wing has the "Resupply" unit abilitynote Refill all ammo-based weapons and EN to max for an adjacent ally; ally's Will decrease by 10; by decombining with the Final Dancougar, the Black Wing can resupply the Dancouga, then re-combine back to full EN with a slight Will penalty. Furthermore, the Dancougar has the unit ability "Ferality"note At 130 Will, +25% to damage, which functions like "Mazinpower". Its range is also good, especially with the "Dancouhou Formation" and "Final Dancoukougaken" attacks.

Additionally, the Dancougar and the Black Wing share upgrades. Players won't need to upgrade the Dancouga's weapons once the Black Wing is available, since the latter has the second cheapest weapon upgrade cost in the game, while the Dancouga's are the most expensive.

Mazinkaiser and "Shin" Great Mazinger, the two best tankers in the game. What augments them earlier in GC is "Mazinpower" activates at 120 Will rather than 130. Mazinkaiser also gets a nod in what might be the strongest attack in the game, "Final Dynamic Special", with Shin Getter-1. Further reinforced in XO with a second "Final Dynamic Special".

The Layzner MK II may lose attack damage when it gets upgraded from the normal Layzner, but what it loses in power it gains in mobility and movement due to the new "V-MAXIMUM" unit abilitynote At 120 Will, +2 to movement, +20 to mobility and unit gains "Beam Coat L" (reduce all beam-based attacks by 1200). Remains active even if the pilot's Will falls below 120. With "V-MAXIMUM" active, the Layzner can move upwards to twelve spaces before casting "Accelerate" or with the help of movement-enhancing parts. While it won't be a killing machine, it's unlikely the Layzner will get hit due to the naturally high stats of pilot Eiji Asuka, allowing him to take potshots at the enemy first, with the rest of the party easily cleaning up the remainder.

Super Robot Wars Judgment

Zeorymer of the Heavens: a size "L" super robot with good defenses and a barrier, plus an evasion ability that kicks in at 130 Will and powerful attacks in melee and range, the deadliest being its MAP variant of the "Meiou". By refraining from using this unit and the Meiou MAP attack (on certain units) for a great portion of the game (except where required), the player unlocks its Mid-Season Upgrade "Great Zeorymer" at the end of its Judgment storyline. It's even harder for enemies to stand a chance against it, since it's armed with all of its series' bosses' finishing attacks, and the "Meiou" earns +1 to attack range. Unfortunately, the requirements to get it are so strict, it bars every other Secret Character excluding Balzac, Tekkaman Rapier and Julia Asuka to become unobtainable, though most players will agree Great Zeorymer is worth it (at least until the second playthrough due to a couple of glitches; see below).

Due to two glitches, it's advisable not to get Great Zeorymer on the first playthrough because they affect it: the first glitch occurs with Ahmos Gale, a character the player can recruit instead of Julia. Due to the glitch, his unit only comes with free upgrades if recruited on the first playthrough. The second is a Good Bad Bug that gives Gai Daigouji TWICE the pilot points he's supposed to get when he rejoins the party, turning him into a gamebreaker in his own right because of super high stats from the extra pilot points and the high damage, yet spammable Combination Attacks.

The ARX-7 Arbalest after activating its "Lambda Driver" unit abilitynote At 120 Will, increase defensive and offensive power of the unit as the pilot's Will increases is a good tie with the Zeorymer. It might actually be better due to its "ECS" unit ability (a "Mirror Image" proxynote At 130 Will, gain 50% chance to dodge any attack), can nullify damage with the "Lambda Driver" barrier upon reaching 120 Will (damage rate also increases by 20-50%), ammo dependant attacks that have a lot of rounds (the only attack that uses energy is its Combination Attack with the M9 Gernsback) and pilot Sousuke Sagara's high stats. Oh, and it's a size "S" unitnote The smaller the unit, the harder it is for larger units to hit it.

The Nadesico returns as a gamebreaker. Once it upgrades into the Nadesico Y, it gets stronger attacks, EN regeneration and a "Phase Transition Cannon" MAP weapon. Although it doesn't outdo the Valzacard and its set of six pilots in W, it has five decent pilots, each with their own good, efficient set of Spirit Commands. Even before the upgrade, the battleship can destroy any mook in scenarios single-handedly, with only support units to refill EN if necessary (though unlikely, since the Nadesico has EN regeneration before the upgrade, too). Since its size is "2L", attacks do surprisingly big damage, and its "Distortion Field" plus naturally high armor makes it hard to destroy; even with minimal or no armor upgrades, early-game mooks have nearly all damage negated. SRW AI usually places battleships as the highest-priority target, making the Nadesico's presence a great help, as enemy fire is drawn to it and bounces off its defense. Unlike many Judgment units from this list, the ship is available right off the bat, with the Nadesico's only weakness being temporarily absent from the party if player chooses the route splits with the Archangel battleship, instead.

In fact, all the original mecha post-Mid-Season Upgrade might count, due to the "Orgone Cloud" ability functioning as both a "Mirror Image" proxy and reducing damage at 130 Will. In fact, every Mid-Season Upgrade comes with their own EN regeneration. Despite the different builds of each of them, this makes all the originals potential Lightning Bruisers if set up correctly.

Despite requiring three playthroughs to get it, the Laftcranz is just as exceptionally balanced with the same unit abilities as the other Mid Season Upgrades. What offsets this is its preceding unit Vorlent is weaker than the three starting machines, until players realize that out of the four starters, only the Vorlent has "Orgone Cloud" right from the start of a play-through.

Often, gameplay mechanics can tip the balance of the game rather than the units. Judgment has at least two cases:

A new battleship mechanic allows swapping deployed units for units that weren't selected to be sortied prior to the start of a scenario. In other words, the player can exploit the maximum number of units allowed per scenario to deploy more units that they should normally be able to. Simply seperate Pegas from Tekkaman Blade and the Black Wing from Dancougar (both units deploy as a single unit), upgrade one of the two battleship's "swap ability", then switch them for other units.

In certain SRWs, anytime a unit is fully upgraded, the player has an option to select a "Full Upgrade Bonus", such as increasing stats or weapon attack power beyond the unit's threshold; later games had a unit-exclusive bonus providing an even bigger advantage over others. Judgment, however, had the "S Rank on All Terrain" bonus. Selecting this grants a unit S-ranking in mobility and weapon reliability in every terrain, meaning additional damage/evasion bonuses anywhere and against any enemy on the map. Since "S" ranks for terrain are rare among units, and terrain plays a major role in combat calculations, this is one of the few reasons why Judgment is the last SRW to make this available as a "Full Upgrade Bonus".

The Freedom and Justice, upon receiving their METEOR units, gain a damage bonus since they become a size "L" unit. Despite larger units having decreased mobility, both machines can still dodge, and even if hit, their HP pool is augmented by the METEOR. Coupled with strong weaponry (both having access to a MAP weapon and a hard-hitting Combination Attack with their METEORs), alongside their respective pilots' excellent stats and "Friendship" bonus (on top of Athrun Zala's "Leadership" pilot skill), both make the best Lightning Bruiser pair available.

There is a notable flaw to this pairing: EN regeneration innate to the machines are not included, but with the right parts and skills, this doesn't become an issue. While this is fixed in W, compared to all the gamebreakers in Judgment, the Freedom and Justice seem average. They don't fare any better in W with the fixes either due to other units breaking the game much harder.

Tekkaman Blade, thanks to being a size "S", on top of an extra set of Spirit Commands once he receives Pegas in a mandatory event. Later, Blade gets his second mandatory upgrade "Blaster Mode" and access to the "Soul" Spirit Command. However, by following certain requirements and saving Tekkaman Rapier, who will join the party later, the two of them can use "Double Voltekka", one of the strongest Combination Attacks in the game.

Provided enough credits are spent on upgrading it, the God Gundam will avert its status as a Glass Cannon and turn into a Lightning Bruiser, powered by its "Clear Mirror Still Water/Meikyou Shisui" unit abilitynote At 120 Will, +10 to all pilot stats and shift the God Gundam into its "Hyper Mode", vast weapon set, fourCombination Attacks and a MAP-based "Sekiha Tenkyoken".

Super Robot Wars K

Bucket loads of game breakers, especially in the super robot department, thanks to the Jeegs. They're small, meaning a higher evasion rate and have quite a few attacks without EN requirements but dish out as much damage as the best moves from other larger supers. All of this is before their Jeegs' "Bronze Bell" ability kicks innote At 130 Will, +25% damage dealt, -25% damage taken, +10% to accuracy and evasion.

What breaks the Jeegs is their insane damage potential. Unlike other super robot pilots, Hiroshi Shiba and Kenji Mitsurugi have access to "Soul", while Kenji gets the "Fury" Spirit Commandnote In K, "Fury" grants auto-critical on the next successful attack. Since Combination Attacks ignore barriers and size differences, combined with max weapon upgrades and damage being augmented by "Bronze Bell" and Spirit Commands, its possible for either of them to easily deal six digits of damage (via the "Kotetsushin Jeeg" combination). Oh, and regarding Hiroshi's Jeeg? When he becomes playable, his Jeeg inherits any upgrades from Kenji's Jeeg, meaning two supers for the price of one.

The titular machine from Overman King Gainer with the "Pink Haro" equippable partnote Earn 100 credits for each panel this unit moves on the map. King Gainer's natural movement, its "Acceleration"/"Super Acceleration" Overskillnote At 130 Will, increase accuracy and evasion, +1 movement and gain "Mirror Image"; +2 movement for "Super Acceleration", combined with pilot Gainer Sanga and his "Game Champ"/"Game King" pilot skillnote At 130 Will, +20 to skill stat; +30 to skill stat for "Game King", and players can spend an entire scenario grinding for credits easily.

Gain Bijou, after getting the Emperanza. He has insane skills, being one of few pilots capable of reaching a max level "Gunfight" pilot skillnote Increase attack power and accuracy for ranged attacks and level two for "Combo Attack"note In K, pilot can attack both units in a partner squad; at higher levels, target additional squads naturally. The Emperanza is even more powerful than King Gainer offensively and has an ability to decrease enemy mobility, essentialy turning him into a walking focus for the entire team.

Kira Yamato is simply horrifying. Sure, he's usually given a handicap (horrific Will gains) to compensate for amazing stats, but in K, Will gains are standardized, meaning Kira's "SEED" pilot skillnote At 130 Will, +10% to accuracy/evasion, +25% to final attack damage and already formidable unit become impossible to stop. Hell, placing him in the outdated Aile Strike Gundam doesn't hurt too much. Much of this is the result of the Strike Freedom with fairly nice mobility and a MAP attack, which is useful in the corridor stages, alongside a rating of S in space terrain.

Vann falls under a Boring Yet Practical game breaker. His Dann of Thursday hits like a truck, but its basic melee attack at a paltry 10 EN bypasses any barriers. Many late-game enemies rely on barriers to survive, meaning Vann can systematically take down almost any end-game Mook with ease. Although the weapon range is short, just slap on range-extending parts so Vann can attack at a greater distance. Throw in some additional Spirit Commands to boost his Will quickly and it's easy to have Vann deal 5-digit damage on 6-8 enemies at once via "Combo Attack". This gets worse later on in the game since Van has a naturally high "Prevail" and "Infight" pilot skillsnote Increase attack power and accuracy for melee attacks and the Dann's "Overflow" abilitynote At 130 Will, +25% damage dealt, -25% damage received, +10% critical rate. Combine this with Van's exclusive "YII" pilot skillnote Increase stats as Will increases, and give the Dann the proper terrain-enhancing parts and...

El Dora Soul is a Mighty Glacier, but with a level 2 maximum "Combo Attack". However, it's ridiculously hard to kill and has a cheap weapon, EN-wise, that can reduce enemy Will. Couple this with 4 sets of Spirit Commands from its pilots and players have a rare unit capable of fighting in disadvantageous terrain by mercy of spamming Spirit Commands. To make it better, they also share a support bonus from Vann and a Combination Attack with the Dann.

The "Combo Attack" mechanic in K allows one solo unit not in a partner unit to attack upwards to three units (solo or partner) in its attack radius for full damage without any penalties. This results in the unit gaining kills and Will much faster than other units. However, what makes this extra effective is the way kills work in this game: in addition to boosting starting Will, as most modern SRWs do, every 100 kills equates to +10 points to all stats (+100 at 999 kills). After enough playthroughs, even units with no upgrades will perform as if they have 5-6 bars worth of upgrades on their units, thanks to their pilots. Unlike the preceding W, the damage cap in K is much higher.

Unlike the "Chain Attack" pilot skill in previous SRWs, enemies don't need to be adjacent to one another or in a row for "Combo Attack" to be effective: enemies only need to be within range of the weapon that is "Combo Attack"-capable.

Completing K will allow players to unlock a new equippable part available at the start of every new play-through. Of the ones available in K, "Orgone Cloud" (via Super Robot Wars Judgment) is probably the best one to usenote Unit gains "Mirror Image", a large "Barrier" (reduce damage taken by 2000 points), small EN regeneration and ignores terrain penalties; unfortunately, it will be available on the fifth play-through. However, like W, players can use an Old Save Bonus feature to immediately unlock these parts on their first play-through simply by inserting a Game Boy Advance SRW into the Nintendo DS GBA slot. Those with access to a physical copy of every Japanese version of the GBA Super Robot Wars titles can unlock all of these parts right off the bat.

Despite some of the more modern mechanics that increases game difficulty, such as "evasion decay" and standardizing Spirit Commands, K uses the W-style system of skills via "skill parts", meaning no pilot skill limitations. Coupled with the "100 kills = +10 to all stats", you can expect a potential cast of One-Man Army pilots after multiple playthroughs. The only downside is no skills in K affects a sub-pilot's maximum Spirit Points or lowers the cost of Spirit Commands.

Super Robot Wars L

The enhanced "Partner System" in L can greatly affect various units, as it's tied into the unit upgrading system. In this game, the majority of a playthrough only allows for a maximum of 5 bars in unit upgrades until the regular 10 bars is unlocked. What happens is partner bonuses are improved by the amount of upgrade bars to units (Level 1 - less than 5 bars on all stats; Level 2 - 5 bars, but less than 10; Level 3 - max upgrade). Therefore, bonuses on a unit only increases the more a player upgrades a unit. The Mazinkaiser example below illustrates this.

You'd think Banpresto had learned their lesson back in W, but L brings us Iczer-1, whose size "SS" makes her a beast at evading attacks, including tanking damage relatively well, thanks to the Iczer units' mode changing ability, and a high damage output (yes, yetagain). Considering her innate "Double Image"-like ability, some fans have started to call her a "mini-Zeorymer"...at least, once you give her the "Ignore Size Modifier" pilot skillnote No accuracy or damage penalties incurred when attacking a unit of a larger size.

Legend Gundam. Just like the Strike Freedom, it has a MAP weapon that distinguishes between friend and foe, allowing it to wipe out multiple enemy squads with a single hit. Unlike the Strike Freedom's "DRAGOON Full Burst", however, Legend's "DRAGOON System" uses EN instead of ammo, allowing it to be used multiple times. This, coupled with its innate EN regeneration from the "Hyper Deuterion Engine" ability, makes it an amazing unit for clearing out enemy mooks. Sure, the DRAGOONs can only be used in space, but pair it up with a unit with air or land terrain adaptability and you're good to go. Some have even taken to calling SRW L "Super Robot Wars Legend" in Japan.

Unlike its K counterpart, Kenji's Jeeg starts with the "Mach Drill" and "Jeeg Bazooka" Combination Attacks right off the bat. Naturally, Jeeg can only use these attacks when placed adjacent to the Big Shooter, but the "Partner System" remedies that easily. The best thing about this Jeeg? "Mach Drill" and "Jeeg Bazooka" consume ammo, not EN, which his normal weapons burn. The Big Shooter grants EN regeneration to its partner, making it a natural pairing with Jeeg, and prevents Kenji from taking a decrease to Will from resupplying normally.

Mazinkaiser and "Shin" Great Mazinger, yet again: powerful weapon sets covering good range, which includes its signature 99 ammo-based "Gigant Missile", in a game where ammo and EN are relatively limited, further augmented by "Mazinpower". However, "Mazinpower" in L ALSO decreases damage taken by 25%. Both machines have the highest armor value in the game, and great accuracy/evasion ratings, making them the best pair of tankers. Simply slap on the "Bullet Save" pilot skillnote Increase capacity for ammo-based weaponry by 50% for Kouji and Tetsuya so they can spam Rocket Punches, upgrade their machines to 5 ranks and send them off. Note when the pair arrive, they arrive with 4 ranks to their units' upgrades already.

Their partner bonus is one of the massive reasons for their superiority in L: it's simply an increase in armor and mobility (Mazinkaiser) or accuracy (Great Mazinger). On their own, the units' raw stats make them durable, but partnered up, they become Lightning Bruisers.

Gaiking or a least after Gaiking the Great is unlocked. A size "L" Lightning Bruiser super with exceptional attacks and the "Flame" pilot skillnote Increase accuracy/evasion/critical/armor the higher the "Flame" level useful for supers, and unlike its K counterpart, its EN usage is much lower in L. While it needs a combination of three units to become Gaiking the Great, the "Partner System" easily solves this and is generally well worth one less unit slot to deploy it.

Additionally, Gaiking the Great is available halfway through a playthrough rather than late-game, compared to K.

Voltes V and Combattler V; compared to their performance in Judgment and some earlier SRW appearances where they needed all the sub-pilots to keep up with other supers, these two are much stronger defensively and offensively, especially when they're in the same partner unit. What makes them a gamebreaker are their 5 pilots, meaning five sets of Spirit Commands, despite having good stats, and turns them into one of the best partner units for almost every other unit in the game.

Surprisingly, Boss Borot turns from a Lethal Joke Character into one of the best units in L, due to its amazing partner bonusnote Increase melee attacks by 100 and critical hit rate by 10 per level, increase land-based terrain adaptability rank to "A" at level 1 ("S" rank at level 2 and 3), and earn immunity to status effects and one attack that can reduce enemy Will by TWENTY. In fact, partner it with the Build Angel, whose unit bonuses match with the Boss Borot's and has attacks with Will reduction, coupled with a few levels of "Support Attack" and some investment into Borot's armor rating (good or not, it's still an extreme Glass Cannon), Boss and his sub-pilots will be a nightmarish threat against any boss in the game.

A maximum level "Prevail" has greatly improved in L, as most pilots with the skill become quite hard to destroy at the lowest HP; among other things, an attack that normally deals around 2000+ points of damage to an allied unit will likely be rendered to around 10-20.

Super Robot Wars MX

So, just to confirm, we did mention Zeorymer, right? Oh, and players can buy the "SP Regeneration" pilot skill note Recover 10% Spirit Points per turn in this game for both Masato Akitsu and Miku Himuro. Furthermore, Zeorymer's unit ability "Dimension Coupler System"note At 130 Will, receive large EN regeneration, small HP regeneration, "Afterimage" (another "Mirror Image" proxy) and "Barrier" is the most effective of all available abilities in MX.

Note this Zeorymer isn't as strong as its Judgment counterpart partially because there's no Great Zeorymer to unlock, but largely due to many powerful units inherent in MX, and arguably being the easiest SRW to date, thus the robot doesn't stand out that much against the rest of the party.

Kaine Wakaba and Meio Plato have the "Twin Laser Sword" Combination Attack together. It's fairly standard for Dragonar appearances in SRW, but in MX it has the exceptionally low Will requirement of 105, costs only 10 EN to use and, with the right weapon upgrades and Spirit Commands, can do damage in excess of 40,000. It's arguably stronger than the "Triple Mazinger Blade" used by Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer. Unfortunately, the attack is only available once Meio joins the party, 10 scenarios before the finale.

MX has a Good Bad Bug that shifts game balance around. Generally in SRW, weapons have terrain ratings, dealing different damage depending on what type of terrain the target stands on. In MX, due to the bug, it's the attacker whose terrain counts in combat calculations. What does this mean? In other words, if a flying unit uses an anti-air weapon with an "S" rating against units in the air (a common occurence in this game), that weapon will deal "S" rank damage against ALL TARGETS ON EVERY TERRAIN, negating the defender's terrain. This makes even supposedly weak units like the TFO real hard hitters.

Super Robot Wars Original Generation

While it doesn't really belong in Original Generation per se, back in the days of the Classic Timeline, Shu Shirkawa and the Neo Granzon...yes, THAT Neo Granzon. He will only join the player in the Volkruss route (the hardest in Super Robot Wars 3), and pull a Face–Heel Turn at the beginning of the last scenario (Shu cannot die unless players purposefully want a Non-Standard Game Over), but once he's convinced to turn Face again, the fun begins. The Neo Granzon's Hit Points towers above the party (around 30,000) with 30% HP regeneration per turn, hits like a bullet train (its infamous "Shukutaihou" requires little Will, with base damage around 9000 and has 20 rounds), and nothing can take more than 20 HP away from him (except the Final Boss). Shu can even activate the "Attack Again" pilot skill half of the time. An alternate strategy of the last scenario is to 1) convince Shu to come back; 2) clear the map with him solo, since unlike Ayato Kamina in MX or the Nashim Gan Eden in Alpha 3, the possibility of him getting killed is pretty much zero.

Back in Super Robot Wars EX, players can play Shu's secret scenerio and, with some code input, the Neo Granzon will be in place of the Granzon (which players are supposed to use later in the game due to plot events). It's so shockingly effective, the Neo Granzon can plough through the whole game alone and without any upgrades needed. The guide book even states "it's a shame for life" if players get it destroyed.

The "SP Regeneration" and "Attacker" pilot skillsnote At 130 Will, +20% to damage. The former makes Spirit Point management trivial compared to any SRW where the ability is unavailable for purchase. The game throws another boss when everyone's beginning to run low? No problem: turtle a few turns, let pilots recuperate their Spirit Points, then bounce back into the fray with buffs. In the case of the latter, this allows any pilot to deal more damage than they should normally be able to, since the originals and their units don't have the likes of "Mazinpower" to access. This is one of the few reasons why either pilot skill is rare among the playable roster and no long purchaseable in the Second Original Generation.

However, the new "Maximum Break" mechanic and various new pilot skills introduced from the Second Z remedies the hole left by the rare, non-purchaseable skills. Likewise, one-time use equippable parts like "SP Drink"note Restore 50 Spirit Points aren't lost when used: they become usable once per scenario. To amp it up, there's also the "SSP Drink" equippable partnote Restore all Spirit Points; while not as mighty as "SP Regeneration", it still makes up for it.

Original Generation 2

The Wild Wurger L is really a red Wild Wurger that can't perform the "Twin Bird Strike" with the Wild Falken, but it comes with the unique weapon "Stun Shot". Any enemy hit with it is unable to move or attack (let alone, counterattack) for both the player and enemy turn. By pairing off the unit with any character having the "Fury" Spirit Command (Ratsel Feinschmecker, Raidiese F. Branstein and Leona Garstein), bosses are effectively helpless, despite most late-game bosses having barriers negating damage from status effect-inflicting weapons. Although "Stun Shot" runs out after one volley, there are about four ways to replenish it on the battlefield at any given moment; for greater results, combine it with a level 3 "Armor Breaker" equippable weaponnote Decrease enemy armor by 30% if the attack is successful to trivialize every major boss past Scenario 27.

Lamia is an excellent pilot and her super robot Angelg's one of the better long-ranged mecha. However, complete certain requirements with her to unlock the Vaisaga, while pumping up her melee stat instead of ranged (which goes against the Angelg's style). Not only does this machine deal insane melee damage, it dodges like crazy thanks to "Mirror Image", with its "Full Upgrade Bonus" increasing the activation rate of "Mirror Image" by 20%, making it nigh untouchable at 70%. The drawback is only Lamia can pilot it, making the Angelg another good unit collecting dust in the hangar (unlike the other secret unit, the Ash Saver, which can be used by anyone), though some players think it's better this way, as the Vaisaga is statistically better. When Lamia returns to the party in Original Generation Gaiden, the Vaisaga is available right away.

Note post-Original Generation 2, the Vaisaga has been Nerfed slightly: while it's still an extremely good machine for Lamia to use, it's no longer considered a gamebreaker due to better units available and bosses having additional abilities preventing solo units from clearing scenarios by itself.

Kai Kitamura tends to suffer from being the Jack-of-All-Stats of the playable roster. His stats are balanced to make him competent, but not particularly outstanding to put him on par with heavyweights like Sanger and the Dygenguard or Ryusei with the SRX. The key lies in his pilot skills and Spirit Commands: beginning with this game, Kai naturally learns "Command"note Pilot emits an aura boosting accuracy/evasion rates to allies; the higher the level, the greater the aura, and the closer to the pilot allies are, the greater the accuracy/evasion rates, making him an excellent field commander. He also has the highly-sought "Soul" post-Continuity Reboot, making him an effective boss killer, but at the cost of severely draining his Spirit Points. However, place him as the head of the two-seater Grungust Type-3 with a secondary pilot to handle defensive and support-based Spirit Commands, and this gives Kai a much better machine with considerable offense suited to his skills (by default, Kai uses a Gespenst).

Original Generation Gaiden

Folka Albark and the Ialdabaoth, an incredibly dodgy super robot that hits very, very hard (its final attack "Kouha Kishin Ken" is only rivalled by certain Combination Attacks), and this is before it gets its Mid-Season Upgrade, where it gets a massive power and stat boost, and its mobility is augmented by "Mirror Image", untouchable even by most bosses. Every one of its basic, un-upgraded attacks tear through Mooks like tissue paper, and with some creative upgrades and parts, Folka can spam the strongest attacks and score critical hits with impunity (provided he unlocks his "Ace Bonus"note +30% to critical hit rate, +5% melee damage). With very fast Will gains to access the strongest attacks within the first few turns and one of the few characters with "Soul" as a "Twin Command"note A seventh-exclusive Spirit Command accessed through pairing two allied units together into a "Twin Unit", this makes him a natural choice when pairing up with other heavy hitters like the SRX and Alt Eisen Riese. Considering Folka and the Ialdabaoth are pastiches of Kenshiro, it's unquestionable they'll be formidable. The catch, however, is even with a game breaker like the Ialdabaoth and the Vaisaga, when Lamia returns to the party, they can't win against the Final Boss alone and unprepared.

Second Original Generation

Despite the "downsizing" of a few game mechanics, there are characters and units that stand above the cast, though some of them only appear late-game. That said, Ing Egret joins pretty early with the decent Ashe, but once he acquires the "Telekinesis" pilot skill and the Ashe becomes the EX-EXbein, he becomes a beast. Defensively, his unit can perform "Mirror Image" and can generate a "T-Link Field S" abilitynote At 120 Will, negate all damage equivalent to the level of "Telekinesis" x 250 (max 2250), which Ing can put into good use (his evasion stat is close to boss statistics); offensively, his "Ace Bonus" boosts all ranged-weaponry for the machine (all but one weapon are ranged) and the ammo/EN distributions are just perfect (the only EN-draining weapon is its late-game equipment "Black Hole Buster Cannon", one of the best attacks in the game for a single unit). Players will seriously want to use this "Inheritor of Huckebein". Do mind, however, if players are aiming to fight the True Final Boss, Ing will be temporarily unavailable in the last scenerio.

Carried over into The Moon Dwellers: Ing is available near the beginning of the game, and still carries his innate Continuous Action pilot skill and Violent Assault Spirit Command (see below for details). However, his new "Ace Bonus" allows him to be the best evasive character thanks to him being unaffected by the evasion decay mechanic.

Recall how this game shafts "Attacker" being a purchaseable pilot skill. Only Axel and Kai get it by default, rendering both invaluable than ever before. Axel and his Soulgain comes with HP/EN regeneration, high damage output ("Code: Kirin" has the second highest non-Combination Attack damage in the game), further augmented by Axel's "Will Limit Break" pilot skillnote Raise maximum Will to 170 instead of 150), and the Soulgain comes in with 3 ranks of upgrades immediately. While Kai's new Gespenst MK II M Custom is comparatively weaker than the Soulgain, put him in the Grungust Type-3 with a second character as a support for Spirit Commands to minimize his weaknesses. Furthermore, Kai may be the better of the two due to having "Soul" and one of five characters who can initiate a "Maximum Break", further maximizing damage.

Since he's Back from the Dead, Shu and his Granzon (no "Neo" this time, folks) is also a powerhouse, but not as much as he was in Original Generation Gaiden (probably because he won't leave the party this time). Here's an example of a real Mighty Glacier, as Shu enters with a high level of "Prevail", "Guard"note At 130 Will, -20% to damage received and "Genius"note +20 to accuracy and evasion stats and critical hit rate pilot skills, his "Ace Bonus" reducing 80% damage from all ranged attacks and the Granzon comes equipped with "Warp Field"...the very same boss-exclusive unit ability that halves all damage taken. Since there aren't too many barrier-breaking weapons in the tail end of the game (certain end-game bosses are lacking those), using Shu to wall off attacks will drastically reduce the difficulty. And the Granzon's "Full Upgrade Bonus"? "Beam Absorb"note Absorb any beam-based attack and convert it into HP. In fact, upon fully upgrading the Granzon's weapons, the "Black Hole Cluster" rivals the EX-Exbein's "Black Hole Buster Cannon" and only uses a paltry 30 EN. Its post-movement MAP attack "Graviton Cannon" is also powerful, and to it off, all of its weapons get "S" ranks in air and space terrain (notably, the Second Original Generation shafts plenty of terrain "S" ranks). This is the closest players will ever get into using the Neo Granzon for Original Generation...

Until the release of Downloadable ContentDark Prison, where Shu is better thanks to being able to initiate "Maximum Break" and the Granzon's "Granworm Sword" carrying an innate level 2 "Armor Breaker" status effectnote Decrease enemy armor by 20% if the attack is successful. All this is before discussing the mandatory Neo Granzon for Shu to use in at least two scenarios. While it is Nerfed, it still retains "Warp Field", "S" ranks for all terrain, EN regeneration and "Beam Absorb". Its stats? 2400 points of armor at stock (surpassing the G Bankaran below) and the "Shukutaihou" still has the 9000 base attack damage, only this time it comes with auto-barrier penetration. Just like EX, Dark Prison allows players to input a secret code to use the Neo Granzon after the first playthrough. Let's face it: Shu deserves to be the 11th-Hour Ranger as having him at hour one will have the game give up and let players win...

When Shu shows up in The Moon Dwellers (usable for the last quarter of the game), all the aforementioned perks (Neo Granzon included) are retained, with only minor nerfs in damage output and terrain adaptations. Go figure.

G Bankaran is the Original Generation answer to the Boss Borot. Michiru Hanaten has a level 7 "Prevail" by default with the unit having a high armor value of 2100...at stock. The only allied unit that comes close to its armor rating is the Giganscudo Doro...at full upgrade. In fact, its strongest attack has a higher attack power than the KoRyuOh's "Tyrant Overbreak", and it gets "S" ranking on all terrain as a "Full Upgrade Bonus". Additionally, achieve Michiru's "Ace Bonus"note Reduce the cost of the "Guts" Spirit Command to 15 Spirit Points (by default, "Guts" costs 30) and players have another tanker on a similar par with the Granzon. The kicker? It's a resupply unit like the Boss Borot: run out of EN? Have it resupply itself and continue to kick ass. Unlike the Boss Borot, players don't need to tinker the pilot or unit to make it a Lethal Joke Character (despite appearances, it isn't one). It's still a powerful unit even with normal tuning.

The hiddenForte Gigas may qualify as its comes with 4 ranks of upgrades, economic and powerful attacks (its strongest attack "Riot Buster" costs only 20 EN), a high armor rating, the incredibly rare "S" ranks for many terrain and its weapons and functions as a two-seater for Joshua Radcliffe and Cliana Rimskaya, both with a Spirit Command list befitting of a single attack-based unit (not support), thus they can take turns casting buffs without burning too much Spirit Points. The only issue is it takes some real work to acquire it (compared against unlocking the Vaisaga in Original Generation 2) and no upgrades from the Aile Chevalier or Blanche Neige carry over. However, unlike its Destiny counterpart, it's fully capable of tanking.

While grinding for experience, credits or pilot points in SRW isn't anything new, it's never been this blatant until Scenario 37 in the Second Original Generation with the "Infinite JinRai Spawn" trick. Before the start of the scenario, upgrade the weapons for Kouta Azuma, give him a "Dustproof Device" equippable partnote Change a unit's and its weapons' land terrain rank to "S", the pilot skills "Will Limit Break" and "Revenge"note Increase counterattack damage by 20% and the "Melee Up"note Increase melee damage by 5% and "Counter"note Increase counterattack damage by 5% modules via the "Ability Slot System". When mass-produced JinRai appear, Kouta calls out the Compatible Kaiser (which inherits any upgrades from him) and the winning conditions state Kouta must reach a point on the map in a number of turns. Rather than achieve the objective, position him strategically and as close to the JinRai as possible. When the enemy turn occurs and a JinRai targets Kouta, use the Kaiser's "Spiral Knuckle" to counterattack, which doesn't have any EN/Will requirements. Because of the upgrades, part, pilot skills and modules given to Kouta, the counterattack will be a One-Hit Kill on the attacking JinRai. When enough JinRai have been destroyed, more JinRai reinforcements spawn in the same location on the map and continue to attack on the enemy turn. Repeat ad infinitum with Kouta...note Abusing this trick will cause the game to freeze: to actually reap the rewards, players must trigger the losing conditions for the scenario, alongside the loss of the Skill Point

Since players have likely garnered a ton of credits and pilot points in this scenario alone, New Game+ becomes trivial (with the exception of "EX-Hard" mode). Like MX, total earned credits and pilot points in one playthrough are carried over onto the next: 50% for the second, 75% on the the third and 100% on the fourth. For pilot points, they are evenly distributed to all playable characters. That means players can immediately grant pilots the skills, stats and terrain adaptability right off the bat when they appear, rendering them into Disc One Nukes. This makes the EX scenarios in the first third of the game a breeze, since most pilots wouldn't have access to these skills, stats and terrain rankings this early in a playthrough.

Additionally, since all those pilot points have been hoarded onto Kouta after scenario 37 in the first playthrough, alongside being grinded to levels beyond the rest of the cast, he'll be strongest character in the party, since it's likely players will give him the pilots skills, maximum stats and "S" rank terrain from all those pilot points, aside from fully upgrading the Compatible Kaiser and its weapons (and, naturally, every other machine in the party). To really take advantage of Kouta, put him in a "Twin Unit" with a pilot having the "Alignment"/"Synchronize" Spirit Commandnote For one turn, the stats of both pilots in the "Twin Unit" are set to the higher value of the two (if one pilot has 200 melee and 150 ranged and the other has 150 melee and 200 ranged, set both stats to 200 for both pilots) and see how they utterly decimate scenarios to the end of the game. Bonus points if Kouta has the "Attack Again" and "Continuous Action"note At 120 Will, pilot can perform an additional action if they successfully destroy an enemy; this can only be done once per turn pilot skills.

The new "Violent Assault" Spirit Commandnote Gain the effects of "Accelerate", "Fury" and "Assail" (for one turn, any non-MAP weapon can be used post-movement), if paired with the "Continuous Attack" Spirit Commandnote If the next attack destroys an enemy, the pilot gains an extra action. While both are only available as a "Twin Command", any "Twin Unit" having them can push through an entire map and earn enough kills from Mooks to pump the Will for allied heavy hitters, allowing them to solely focus on the scenario's boss (particularly if it's a Flunky Boss). Best in scenarios with a turn limit or for getting a Skill Point where a turn limit is present. Of course, the lack of "SP Regeneration" is what offsets this tactic, but by then only the boss unit remains, and Spirit Point conservation becomes no worry.

Infinite Battle

Of all playable units in the game, the Granzon is horribly overpowering as its presence makes every other unit obsolete. At 140 Will, it's able to use the "Black Hole Cluster" attack which pulls in every enemy unit no matter how far it is on the map and can take out groups of enemies with ease while allied units will likely only target one enemy. Normally, Shu and the Granzon is the last Secret Character players can unlock in "Mission Mode", but this can be circumvented very early in the game by playing a certain character on the hardest difficulty in "Arcade Mode". Finally, if players fully upgrade the Granzon, its recharge time for "Black Hole Cluster" and "Graviton Cannon" is so blazingly fast, enemies will be dropping left and right.

Sakito Asagi and the Rayblade begins as Magikarp Power who gains a few attacks here and there during the playthrough. Once it gets its Super Mode, it allows him to regenerate Spirit Points whenever he destroys an enemy unit, whereas the only way to recover Spirit Points is through consumable parts. The Rayblade's MAP attack is Friendly Fire Proof and Sakito has the "Breakthrough"note Until the next turn, ignore "Zone of Control" (pilots cannot move past to the side of an enemy unit on the map), "Soul" and "Accelerate" Spirit Commands, giving him a good position to fire the weaponnote Note that kills incurred by this MAP attack do not regenerate Spirit Points. Did we mention the Rayblade can use an equippable part bypassing the need to get its "TR Gauge" to 100% to instantly enter its Super Mode? The downside is Sakito cannot access all the Rayblade's weapons right off the bat as the "TR Gauge" is dependent on the number of enemies killed on the map.

Rather than Shu and the Granzon being an 11th-Hour Ranger, he's this again thanks to being available halfway in a playthrough. Once Shu's Will reaches 130, he can transform the Granzon into the Neo Granzon. With "Soul" as his final Spirit Command and giving the Granzon movement-based equippable parts, choosing +2 to movement for its "Full Upgrade Bonus", max weapon upgrades and other invested pilot skills, he's guaranteed to kill groups of Mooks with ease via the "Graviton Cannon" and take out a half the health of Elite Mooks.

The five Elemental Lord units, thanks to the new ability where upon transforming into their "Full Possession Mode" replenishes HP and MGnote Masou Kishin equivalent of ENto full when their pilots reach 130 Will.

The Moon Dwellers

If players take the time to Level GrindRaul Gurenden in the Excellence Rescue to level 99 before he leaves and returns in the new Excellence Gunstriker, his Super Robot Wars Reversal co-pilots will also be at level 99, allowing them to use their sets of Spirit Commands right off the bat when they take over piloting duties for the Rescue. Meanwhile, Fiona Gureden, thanks to a Good Bad Bug, will appear with her "Ace Bonus" already unlocked when she receives her individual Gunstriker; to put this into perspective, when Al-Van Lunks pulls a mandatory Heel–Face Turn to join the party before the Judgment finale, the character still needs a few kills before unlocking an "Ace Bonus".

Calvina Coulange partnered with Melua Melna Meia can be this for the wrong reasons (see General for more details): Melua has the "Mercy" Spirit Command and the Bellzelute has a straight-lined MAP attack, coupled with Calvina's innate "Hit and Away" pilot skill. Since the Bellzelute is a real, it can use any of the equippable weapons and modules, thus players can Level Grind her to desired levels. Since Original Generation has plenty of characters who can switch between real robots, patient players can easily reach the maximum level 99 with the Bellzelute, the plus side being this machine can be used by nearly everyone on the roster.

Despite the change in setting, Haken Browning becomes a gamebreaker again, provided players invest in him. First, like Axel and Kai, Haken possesses the incredibly rare "Attacker" pilot skill; once his "Ace Bonus"note Increase final damage dealt by 5% for every female in a Twin Unit with him is unlocked, pair his Gepenst Haken in a Twin Unit with the Hyperion. A total of four female characters in the Twin (Aschen Brodel in the Gespenst, Ibis Douglas, Sleigh Presty and Tsugumi Takakura in the Hyperion) invariably makes Haken one of the best damage dealers in the game. Furthermore, by acquiring the Gespenst Haken's "Full Upgrade Bonus"note Increase melee weapons' attack power equal to Aschen's character level times 5, it's possible for Haken to do the same amount of damage as Combination Attacks in the game, without using Status Buffs.

Super Robot Wars Reversal

The Black Serena comes with two or three complete life bars (depending on whether players have unlocked its "High Mobility" upgrade), ridiculous evasion rates, the "Boson Jump" ability ("Mirror Image" clone) and powerful attacks. Its only weakness is burning through EN like no tomorrow, which is meant to force the player to sacrifice its life bars to refill it, but there are ways around that like the "Solar Panel" equippable partnote Recover 10% of a unit's max EN at the start of a turn and other reloading methods. That, and Akito Tenkawa can't use the "Double Gekigan Flare" unless it's down to its last life bar...

Oddly, for a game that has a glut of great units, the Black Serena in W is decent at best: the programmers forgot to give it "Boson Jump"...

While hit with a Nerf by having its Rocket Punch use EN and less range, Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. Alongside Mooks rendered weaker in Reversal, both units have a Combination Attack with one another and the Shin Getter, while earning access to a one-round ammo-based weapon with an absurd attack power ridiculously early, turning them into Mighty Glaciers. Due to the Relationship Values in Reversal, placing them adjacent to one another increases damage. Unlike their Alpha Gaiden counterparts, there's nothing holding them back that makes them the Crutch Character of this game, so it's not surprising to find them dealing 5 digits of damage with basic attacks when other units need to use high-end weapons to do the same.

Gundam X and Gundam Double X, mainly for the fact their "Satellite Cannons" don't cost a thing to use (instead, the attack is locked until a few turns are over), an easy method of obtaining the G-Bits (by selecting a specific route) and being able to use the "Double Satellite Cannon" Combination Attack between the two machines at a whopping range of at least 9.

Super Robot Wars UX

One of the reason major bosses have the "All-Canceller" abilitynote Negate all status effects inflicted from weapons is probably because of the Deceive, a size "L" double-seater with the "Nerve Crack" abilitynote At 120 Will, for one turn, debuff an enemy stats by 15 and buff an ally stats by 15. Can be used post-movement and effects stack and renders anyone without "All Canceller" helpless. It's not a second-tier unit either, as it's a resupply unit with decent support-based Spirit Commands, meaning it can stay in frontline combat with the attackers.

Koumei Re-GZ has a "Tactician Bonus" that is simply fantastic. Initially, he provides a 10% damage buff on the player's turn, but after Scenario 22, all allied units gain "Ignore Size Modifier" and post-Scenario 37, all allied units' terrain adaptability will increase by one rank. Bruising through the late-game with such an overwhelming force can be satisfying for some. However, since some of the secrets involve using an alternative Tactician in specific stages, excessive use of Koumei will result in not getting quite the number of secrets.

The "Tactician Bonus" for Soushi Minashiro is relatively minimal, but once he returns in Scenario 47, his Tactician Bonus becomes "Negate Continuous Target"note Negate "evasion decay". With massive number of foes players are facing in the late-game (especially the next scenario against the ELS), Soushi becomes more useful as a Tactician.

As befitting of a Humongous Mecha based on the Cthulhu Mythos, the eponymous Demonbane is ridiculously strong. At size "L" with good base damage and great range for its weapons, it has the most devastating attacks in the game save for a few. Upgrades will provide it with the ability "Magic Circle Wall"note At 100 Will or higher, negate all damage below 2000, a barrier to stop small arms fire, and "Mirror of Nitocris" (another "Mirror Image" proxy), which in combination with its naturally high HP makes it nigh-unkillable. Since the Demonbane uses Magic Points rather than energy, it's immune to status effects draining EN, making it terribly effective against the ELS, alongside high MP recovery per turn (except when Elza becomes the sub-pilot; Al-Azif returns late-game). With good abilities and Spirit Commands, it's not difficult to solo the whole game with it (including scenarios requiring mandatory deployment units)note ...except maybe Scenario 48 against the ELS and destroy the Final Boss in roughly two turns. Granted, Master Therion and the Liber Legis are statistically stronger, but they don't count since they're Secret Characters who join in the final scenario of the game, provided the player has met the Guide Dang It! requirements.

Super Robot Wars V

If Valzacard from W is the most broken battleship-mecha in all SRW titles, then Yamato is definitely the most broken battleship ever. Basically speaking Yamato is a Lightning Bruiser on steroids: while its armour value isn't as impressive as your other Super Robots, its Wave Motion Shield will No-Sell small damages, and it has Rank-S Space Adaptation meaning it can even dodge attacks unlike most of its fellow ships. On the offensive side, it is well-balanced between EN and ammo attacks while all of them can deal high damage (its CIWS can deal damages enough to sink smaller battleships), and the titular Wave Motion Gun comes with a base damage around 9000 (exceeding 10000 after fully upgraded), while its MAP version has infinite range. Granted both drain a lot of EN (250 per shot for single target) and only usable in very few stages, but there's nothing can't be solved by its built-in EN Regeneration. It's custom bonus is adding an additional part slot on top of adding another part slot from choosing the +1 part slot for the full upgrade bonus like Z (see the Super Robot Wars Z down below for details), which means any weakness it might have can easily be covered. Furthermore, it also serves as a massive force multiplier for the rest of your team, because Captain Okita begins with Command Level 4, and a skill that boosts the effectiveness of the Command skill and has it apply the maximum bonus throughout the area-of-effect instead of degrading with distance. Yamato has caught many player's attention since the release, and it's not without reason.

You want to break the Yamato even further? Give it the ExC Laser, which doubles ExC gain (Yamato's Custom Upgrade Bonus suits this just nicely). With its weapons, it can gain at least 2 ExC per enemy kill, and then either kill again using Multi Action, or power up surrounding units.

As expected, Mazinger ZERO is devilishly powerful. It's an incredible tank, with the highest armor stat in the game thanks to its custom bonus granting +300 armor (in addition to +50 EN). ZERO's attacks are simply unmatched in power by anything in the game save Yamato's Wave Motion gun, which costs 2.5x the EN of ZERO's Final Breast Nova finisher. As if this weren't enough, pilot Koji Kabuto's amazing Ace Bonus multiplies final damage by 1.2x above 130 Focus, which notably stacks with the Attacker skill, giving ZERO a whopping 40% extra damage per attack. With a bit of smart part and skill allocation, ZERO can charge into maps one-shotting battleships with its weaker attacks, taking scratch damage from everything including bosses, and recovering most of its EN each turn. Good luck losing with this monster on the battlefield.

What's quite funny is that one of the best pieces of equipment to give ZERO is a Pink HARO.

Sometime since his last game Judeau Ashta and his ZZ must have joined a gym because he took some serious levels in badass. While a very tanky unit in of itself, it comes equipped with anti-beam coating which will make it virtually impervious to most Gundam series units (And the game is VERY big on Gundams) as well as a significant chunk of the rest of your opposition. Furthermore the biosensor is unlocked fairly early in the game (within the first 1/3rd actually) which ramps up his already good stats to new heights and upgrades your beam coating to a psychic barrier. Once you unlock the full customization bonus you will be able to spam the Hi Mega Cannon early and often thanks to its reduced cost and focus requirements. For added fun, slap a hyper generator to refill your EN at the start of each turn. Oh, did we mention Judeau's ace bonus increases the amount of money and tactical points earned from each kill? Enjoy your lightning bruiser that darts across the battlefield raining down divine wrath with its forehead death beam!

As per usual, the Shin Getter Robo (and its partner in crime, the Shin Dragon) is slightly weaker than the Mazinger ZERO, but compensates by having 3 pilots with synergistic Spirits and a 50% boost in damage if Ryoma has his ace bonus, acquires Attacker, and hits 170 Focus (which is easier than you think, thanks to Benkei and his Drive spirit). You also obtain the Shin Getter much earlier than the ZERO, and it comes with a combination attack with the Shin Dragon to annihilate bosses in one hit.

Players can now stack Valor or Soul with critical hits in this game thanks to the new "Extra Command" mechanic.

The TacP Customization 'High Spirits' grants all units 1 ExC upon sortie. This doesn't seem like much, but it has a fiendish utility for battleships: You can use Emergency Recovery in the first turn to grab any units closeby that have not made their move yet (especially ones that don't have Accel), move the battleship, and then have the unit launch from the battleship, slingshotting slow and/or powerful units ahead into battle for a few early kills.

It takes a bit of work, but Tobia Arronax and the Crossbone Gundam can become this. Tobia naturally starts with a high level in "Potential", as well as a fairly high Newtype rating. Once "Ignore Size Modifier" is maxed out, focus on getting the ace bonus and full upgrade. The full upgrade will net you a healthy 30 point bonus to crit modifier and "ignore barrier" on all close combat weapons, which you naturally have in spades. But the real kicker is Tobia's ace bonus: It reduces the cost of Valor to a measly 25 SP.

Super Robot Wars W

The Valzacard of the Ardygun family is a battleship-sized super robot that dodges like a real robot with nearly 30,000 HP. Technically, its attacks and unit size are what makes it so powerful in the game; to top it off, it has six pilots, meaning access to one of the largest sets of Spirit Commands for a single unit, giving it tons of possible buffs each turn. The best part? It's the mandatory final Mid-Season Upgrade for the protagonist. Also, if players are willing to glitch a bit, it can have infinite turns due to the "Infinite Spirit Points Glitch" (see below), and that's not through setting up the protagonist to do it. Whatever minor flaws it has (if any), it can be covered with its four parts slots. In a game full of gamebreakers, this is the most gamebreaking of them all.

To give players an idea of how terrific the Valzacard is, even without unit or weapon upgrades, the Valzacard equipped with an EN-based equippable part and Spirit Point restoration consumable part, alongside support through its six pilots' Spirit Commands can take down roughly 80% of the Final Boss HP by itself (excluding "Support Attack" from allies).

On the second playthrough and beyond, you can set up Kazuma's spirits as you want, meaning you can give him Love or Courage and Extra Movement as skills he can learn. 4 Pasfu machines on Valzacard and 2 characters that can take extra turns means you don't need to glitch for infinite spirit points.

Its previous form, the Valguard, is no slouch, either: another battleship-sized super robot with five pilots, insane durability and acceptable offensive power. While it doesn't sound too amazing compared to the Valzacard, it has an ammo-based MAP weapon with nice coverage and all of its attacks cost little EN, but deal incredible damage. The early parts of the second half of W can be trivialized by spamming its MAP weapon after giving Kazuma Ardygun "Hit & Away". Even though the Valguard won't be as powerful as many of the returning first-half units, the Valzacard will be available a few scenarios later.

Valguard has one major advantage over Valzacard though. While Valzacard is stronger and hits harder, Valguard still acts as a battleship, meaning you can load units into it to recover if they run out of energy or ammo while Valguard moves and fights.

Detonator Orgun and the Tekkamen...ALL seven of them (eight, if players achieve requirements). Five of them have two HP bars (meaning a second set of Spirit Commands), six of them have long-ranged Wave Motion Guns with a MAP variant, and can attack enemies in a row with their base attacks via the "Chain Attack System". Of particular note is Yumi "Tekkaman Hiver" Francois, whose "Voltekka" MAP attack is Friendly Fireproof and has the widest area of effect; augmented further because Yumi gains access to the "Love" Spirit Command. Oh, and most of them (bar Orgun) have cheap, extremely powerful Combination Attacks with each other.

Aki Kisaragi takes Boring, but Practical to a new level. Unlike her Tekkaman peers, she doesn't have a "Voltekka" attack, but her post-movement "Double Lancer Combination" with Tekkaman Blade is ridiculously strong, despite the short range of 3, yet the requirements are a paltry 30 EN and 110 Will. Combine this with her natural stats (touted as one of the best in W) and great movement range that comes from being a Tekkaman, players have a monster who can dish out punishment extremely quick.

To say nothing about GaoGaiGar and its derivatives is a crime. This super robot is built for defense, yet dodges like a real robot with its only downside being its high EN costs for its strongest attacks and pitiful attack range. However, its "Protect Shade"/"Protect Wall" unit abilitiesnote At 100 Will, negate all damage below 1400 and 1600, respectively buff defense against small damages (pilot Gai Shishioh has the "Invincible" Spirit Commandnote Reduce all damage received from the next attack to 10, which when used in conjunction with "Protect Shade"/"Protect Wall", means no damage from the next hit). Also, unlike its Alpha 3 counterpart, Goldymarg isn't a separate unit in W, so the GaoGaiGar can use the "GoldionHammer" as many times as possible. Once the plot brings in the Genesic GaoGaiGar and "Goldion Crusher", it can use that infinitely to the player's content. Talk about a "God of Destruction"... breaking the game.

By themselves, the Ryu robots are decent, if not breathtaking, units with a solid set of attacks that can often cause Standard Status Effects on the enemy. But to streamline their various combinations (they can form both their normal combinations and their combinations fuelled by THE POWER), all four share upgrades and levels. Basically, players can get four fairly decent units for the price of one, and eight different pools of "Spirit Commands" (4 from the Ryu robots, 4 more from each of their combined forms, with 2 of them being easy-to-unlock Secret Characters). Oh, and the upgrades spent on the male Ryus get carried over to the female Ryus, who also share character levels with each other, meaning two more fairly decent support units(and a third combined unit) for the price of one. Thanks to how Combining Mecha are handled in W, players are equipping up to three units with an equippable part for every part given to each of the Ryu robots. To take this Up to 11, they also share pilot skills (give one "Will Limit Break", all four/two gets the effect), meaning this squad of ersatzAutobots are, by far, the most resource-efficient units in SRW history.

Volfogg has an attack that nullifies an enemy's barrier and has two HP bars with "Double Image". Mic Sounders the 13th can buff Will for allies and its attacks inflict Standard Status Effects, one of which gets a MAP attack variant, and all of them have high damage capabilities and are ammo-based. Finally, King J-Der inherits upgrades from GaoGaiGar and has insane durability backed with "Double Image" and a damage reduction unit ability complimented by strong attacks. It also gets a four-pilot Spirit Command pool in the late-game, essentially turning it into a more durable mini-Valzacard. In short, the whole cast of GaoGaiGar is a family of game breakers.

Additionally, thanks to the innate ability of the GaoGaiGar cast, all of their units, including the Ryu robots, become Lightning Bruisers. Upon realizing their total attack power is greater than the rest of the cast in W, it makes them look pitiful by comparisonnote The non-secret form of the combined Ryu robots has a Combination Attack greater than the Valzacard's final attack, costs the same amount of EN and is available as soon as their ability to combine is unlocked. The secret version is arguably stronger.

Mazinkaiser, at least after getting its "Kaiser Scrander", is a more offensive-based GaoGaiGar with less armor, but makes it up with "Mazinpower". Add in the "Kaiser Nova", economic Combination Attacks with the "Shin" Great Mazinger, a slightly more expensive combination with the Shin Getter and the "Final Dynamic Special" with both, players get one hell of a Lightning Bruiser.

Great Mazinger, despite being Mazinkaiser-lite, is pretty great. It has the same statistical layout as the Mazinkaiser, but with weaker weaponry, which won't be a problem when since Kouji and Tetsuya share four extremely overwhelming Combination Attacks. As an extra, both units join the party early in a playthrough, making them reliable Disc One Nukes with their mobility as their only weakness.

On New Game+, players can access the shop to purchase equippable parts and Mook units. On paper, that sounds dandy, until players realize they can buy "External GS Ride" partsnote +150 to max EN and recover 10% of a unit's maximum EN at the start of a turn. Go ahead: equip it to any playable unit, pick an EN-consuming attack and go wild.

To say nothing of P.A.S.F.U. units, which recover 10 of the pilot's SP every turn. All pilots. So yeah, Shin Getter, Golion, and (oh God) Valzacard become even stronger.

Just like Judgment, W has three gameplay mechanics that tipped game balance over on its head. However, all are cases of Good Bad Bug.

The reason why Orgun and the Tekkamen are gamebreakers is unlike the preceding game Judgment (where Blade was already challenging), the size difference mechanic that otherwise reduces the effectiveness of small units attacking larger ones has no effect in the gamenote At the same time, it renders the "Ignore Size Modifier" pilot skill useless, meaning they can hit every bit as hard as a Mobile Suit, yet their damage output is comparable to high-end supers or even higher.

The "Infinite Spirit Points Glitch", accessed by manipulating Spirit Commands for units with multiple pilots. By selecting two specific Spirit Commands having the same action, with one that grants more (ie. "Spirit/Yell" and "Drive"note +30 to pilot Will or "Valor" and "Soul") from the primary pilot and a co-pilot, then deselecting both Spirit Commands before actually casting them, the primary pilot will gain extra Spirit Points equal to the cost of the Spirit Command selected, even bypassing that pilot's maximum. In other words, if the primary pilot has the "Zeal" Spirit Command, the unit can move and attack infinitely without any penalties. By default, there are three units that can abuse this bug: King J-Der, Boss Borot and, that's right, the Valzacard.

To further extend just how ludicrous this bug is, if the primary pilot has "Soul" and one of the sub-pilots has "Valor", the player can cast both and stack them togethernote "Soul" and "Valor" cannot stack in SRWs, multiplying damage by five times. Thankfully, this is only available to Kazuma in New Game+, as players can customize Kazuma's Spirit Command set to give him "Soul" during the character setup menu, which he does not have by default.

Like most modern installments, players can sell acquired equippable parts in the intermission menu for extra credits. However, a bug in W returns all items sold if a game over occurs. Simply sell parts at the pre-battle intermission menu (the one just before players sortie their units), trigger the game over conditions for the scenario and they'll acquire all credits from items sold and enemies destroyed, yet keep everything previously sold. This can be repeated infinitely, including acquiring infinite "Battle Points" (BP)note "BP+" skill parts are returned after a game over like equippable parts. However, unlike other skill parts, "BP+" still retains its effect on the pilot after a game over.

There are a couple of other mechanics that aren't bug-related, yet by modern gameplay standards, can break the game.

The handling of pilot skills in W: unlike modern SRWs that require pilot points to purchase skills with a limited amount of space per pilot, W doesn't use points nor have such restrictions. Pilot skills come in the form of "skill parts" akin to equippable parts (once used, however, they are permanent). With the right skill parts, a pilot can inflate their maximum Spirit Points to staggering levels, reduce Spirit Command costs by 30%, boost starting Will by 15, increase the Will limit beyond 150 and so forth, and all of these can be used on a sub-pilot, too. In other words, every pilot can potentially become a One-Man Army.

Some of the upgrade inheritence in W can easily result in a good number of future acquired units receiving those upgrades, while a few others outright sharing them. Finding out which unit(s)' upgrades carries over to which goes a long way in making the most of the player's finances. The Ryu robots (see above) are just one of the few examples in the game.

Chain Attacks are done differently in this game. Instead of hitting enemies in a row, all you needed was for them to be adjacent to each other. It was pretty common to use a resilient unit like the Nadesico, GaoGaiGar or a Guard-ed Golion to get enemies all bunched up together, then rush in your units(and nearly every unit had at least one chain-able attack) and start playing reverse Tetris.

Pound-for-pound, W has one of the largest per-unit ratios of Wave Motion Guns in the series. And returning units from Judgement all had their weapons affect a larger portion of the map. They even gave the Deathscythe Hell a MAP attack. With practice, it was a simple matter to lure large amounts of enemies into the area of one, weaken them with chain attacks, then clear out, drop a cash- or experience-doubling Skill, wipe them all out with one blast/stroke, and do this with multiple groups in the same turn. Stages with repeatedly- or infinitely-respawning units (such as the Endless Waltz climax or Final Boss stage) were ripe for abuse.

Super Robot Wars Z

Not to the levels of Zeorymer in MX and Judgment, but the Baldios. This "Zeorymer-lite" Lightning Bruiser stands at size "2L". While it doesn't have a MAP attack and EN regeneration, it has a high armor rating, ridiculous attack range, strong and economic weapons, and the "Subspace Thrust" unit abilitynote At 130 Will, move through any terrain without penalties and gain a 25% chance of negating any attack. What's more is the Baldios has a goddamned "A" rank in every terrain in a game that rarely gives out a unit with anything better than three "A"'s and a "B".

The Nirvash TypeZERO doesn't start out as much until players advance in the game and get its "Spec-2" Mid-Season Upgrade with top-class accuracy/evasion rates with a hideously overpowering, 6-ranged "Seven Swell" MAP weapon that can be recharged and abused using the appropriate skills. Most players are divided into two groups after getting the Spec-2: those who avoid using it to ruin the game and the ones who MAP nuke everything with "Seven Swell" by using the "Resupply" and "Enable" Spirit Commands to set it up, hence where the "Nirvash/Haman Karn/Amuro/Resupply" combo comes from.

Additionally, for most of the game, Eureka is the main pilot of the Nirvash; unfortunately, most of her pilot skills (save "SP Up"note Increase maximum Spirit Points by 5 upwards to level 9 and "SP Regeneration") aren't beneficial until she becomes the sub-pilot. However, any Pilot Points earned by Eureka are transferred to Renton Thurston when he becomes the Nirvash's primary pilot. So long as players keep deploying Eureka and earning Pilot Points with her, they'll wind up giving all those Points onto Renton when he becomes available, inevitably maximizing Renton in the Nirvash Spec-2; furthermore, purchase as many "SP Up" pilot skills for Eureka so she can use "Zeal" right away when she become the sub-pilot for Renton.

The Aquarion in the hands of a player who knows what they're doing: this mecha has the unique ability "Element System", which gives the primary pilot the highest stat among the unit's three pilots in every stat category if his/her Will reaches 130; not a difficult task. This may not seem much, but if one takes each of the three pilots and pump a specific stat, an "Element System"-powered Apollo can hit like a tank, dodge like a Gundam and have a high enough skill stat to activate "Attack Again", allowing him to double-hit everything using its powerful weapons that have amazing range, which can be further improved with parts.

For extra power, give Apollo the "EN Save"note EN attacks cost 20% less EN and "Hit & Away" pilot skills and use the 14-ranged (!) "Mugen Punch" as much as possible.

Roger Smith has the exclusive "Negotiator" pilot skill: so long as Roger is deployed on the battlefield and remains there until the end of the scenario, any repair costs incurred from destroyed units are reduced to zero. Repeat: all repair costs are reduced to zero. It helps The Big O is one of the game's better units by being a defensive and offensive powerhouse capable of leveling enemy forces by itself with the right build. Its weapons also have pretty good range for a Super Robot and its most powerful attack is ammo-based.

The Turn A Gundam is largely Magikarp Power incarnate, but with the right pilot (any Universal Century Gundam ace who isn't Loran Cehack (unless players decide to do some Level Grinding with him), usually Char Aznable or Harry Ord, and with Amuro or Haman as a squad member using their very cheap "Enable" Spirit Command), it becomes a WMD capable of not only MAP nuking the entire battlefield, but also walk over everything in its range by lowering its armor rating via "Moonlight Butterfly" while doing insane amounts of damage.

Most players tend to pick Char since he isn't relegated to the Sazabi and is stuck in the Hyaku Shiki while Amuro has the Nu Gundam, giving him a good unit to pilot; plus, Ord has his Gold Sumo.

Kei Katsuragi and his Orguss. This pilot is one of the best in Z, if not the flat-out best: he comes with an amazing pilot skill set (containing the much sought-out "Attack Again" and "Counter"note Gain a chance of attacking first before the enemy strikes first), a high enough skill stat to activate both, high evasion/ranged stats, and a very dodgy mecha that has no business doing as much damage as it does. Just slap him with the "Bullet Save" to get more hits and "Ignore Size Modifier" since the Orguss is a size "S", spend a couple thousand credits on Orguss' weaponry and mobility and laugh as he evades everything thrown at him and hammers Mooks to death with a Macross Missile Massacre, easily doing damage above 10000 when fully upgraded. Later in the game, players gain Olson D. Verne with an identical Orguss II, giving both access to the very cost-effective and powerful "Orguss Combination" that makes them even deadlier. Keep in mind that Kei's stats are as good as (if not even better) than Universal Century aces Amuro and Char.

One of the things that make Kei insanely powerful is his "Squad Leader Bonus"note A bonus applied to the squad depending on the squad leader: +20% damage against male enemies, -20% damage against females. Since 90% of the enemies in Z are male, this is probably the best "Squad Leader Bonus" in the game.

Finally, a way to make the Orguss a Disk One Nuke (on top of being a gamebreaker) is to upgrade Kei's earlier Bronco II, since it carries over to the Orguss; in fact, it's cheaper to upgrade the former before the carryover occurs. Considering the scenario before the carryover is triggered gives nothing for players to use their credits on (at least in Rand Travis' route), even a player not on a New Game+ can get to half the full upgrade for the Bronco II, then proceed to barely bother with the Orguss' weapons until late-game.

Rand Travis' Gunleon can be made into one of these if players properly set it up as a Mighty Glacier or Stone Wall and place it into a squad with two other units that have the "HP Repair" unit abilitynote Recover 10% of max HP per turn (the TFO comes to mind), giving it a 30% of max HP recovery each turn. Add this to Rand's possession of "Prevail" and the Gunleon's high armor and size "L" rating, players have a virtually un-killable, wrench-wielding GaoGaiGar Expy of doom that can survive wave after wave of attacks. There's a good reason people avoid Rand when the plot forces them to fight him.

Just like its K counterpart, if King Gainer gets 100 kills before a certain scenario (or just reaches Ace status with 70 kills in the Second Z games), he gets "Game Champ". In other words, slap Gainer with "Attack Again", "Ignore Size Modifier" and "EN Save" to get in more mileage out of his "Overskill" attacks, upgrade King Gainer's weapons and enjoy the sparks flying as he tears through enemies.

Certain pilot skills, like "Predict"note At 130 Will, +10% to accuracy/evasion/critical stats, "Dash"note +1 movement; at 130 Will, +2 movement, "Guard" and certain equippable parts (particularly the "Hyper Jammer"note At 130 Will, gain 30% chance to dodge all attacks and the "D Extractor"note At 130 Will, +200 to all weapons, +150 armor rating in Saisei-hen) can be used to push his already useful "Overskill" bonus to even greater heights.

Second Super Robot Wars Z: Hakai-hen

Mazinger Z has the highest armor rating among allied units and powerful attacks at all ranges, including a 7-ranged "Photon Beam" which it gets early in the game (it has a pre-built "Ignore Size Modifier" and can bypass barriers). Combined with EN regeneration ("small" un-upgraded, "medium" as a "Full Upgrade Bonus") that allows it to spam the attack multiple times every turn, it becomes possibly the best Super Robot in the party for most of the game. Oh, and think the good old "Mazinpower" is gone? Simply train Kouji until he hits Ace status to get it.

Not to mention Saisei-hen gives it the "God Scrander", allowing it to use the "Big Bang Punch" (MAP and normal version) and "One Hundred Rocket Punch"; both attacks are post-movement. The best part? The MAP version of "Big Bang Punch" and "One Hundred Rocket Punch" are ammo-based (only one round, though), meaning players can spam EN like no tomorrow when dealing with Mooks.

The humble "Propellant Tank" equippable partnote Replenish all EN; one use per scenario. Rescued from the Scrappy Heap indeed, on account of how it's one use per scenario rather than one use per game like older SRWs. In most situations, the "Propellant Tank" is more useful, in terms of total energy recharged, than the "Solar Panel" or "Yggdrasil Drive"note +150 max EN (the same goes, to a lesser extent, the "Cartridge"note Replenishes all ammo; one use per scenario and other expendables).

Interestingly, this idea of having the "expendable" equippable parts be reusable came fromSuper Robot Wars Neo. However, it isn't as much of a gamebreaker there for different reasons (parts usually heal a percentage - 30% or 60% for common ones, though rare ones recuperate everything).

In contrast to its Z counterpart, the Aquarion is better in this game better due to its new attack that can be used with any of its pilot combinations, alongside each Aquarion pilot having a unique "Ace Bonus" that boosts a certain stat by 20 (Sirius is melee, Silvia is range, Reika is skill, Pierre is defense, Jun is accuracy, Tsugumi is evasion). Apollo's "Ace Bonus"? 125 Will at the start of every scenario (20 from the bonus, 5 for achieving Ace status), meaning he only needs 5 more Will to activate the "Element System". It basically tells players to use Apollo/Sirius/Reika as pilots in the Aquarion, then train all three of them to become aces. The only downside is the Solar Aquarion's even more of an energy hog than before, but this can be easily remedied with the appropriate parts and pilot skills.

As far as Hakai-hen units go, Chirico Cuvie and his Scopedog, when given such things as the "Ignore Size Modifier" pilot skill, will dodge almost everything and rarely fail to hit a critical. Chirico's starting skills include a max level "Prevail" and "????" ("Abnormal Survivor"note When HP is below 10%, +30 to accuracy/evasion, +20 to melee/ranged/defense/skill stats) which makes him the god of One-Hit-Point Wonder units from the start. To quote the following post (note those dreaded Dimensional Beasts will still have a fair chance to hit him if players aren't careful, especially when their OWN "Prevail" kicks in):

"His special skill coupled with his Potential 9 basically means that if Chirico is in the red, everything is dead. He simply goes apeshit viking berserker super saiyan crazy at that point and even DAMON bosses will find it impossible to land a hit."

In fact, the Scopedog's strongest attack has a built-in "Ignore Size Modifier" by default, hits about 5700 at max upgrade and if the Scopedog's fully upgraded, its "Full Upgrade Bonus" increases all weapons' critical hit rate by 30. Alongside Chirico's "Ace Bonus" of +300 attack power to all weapons after 130 Will, so long as he's in the red, every attack will score a critical. WOW...

Though some players may overrate Chirico, others look to Akagi Shunsuke and the Dai-Guard. Considered another god of Magikarp Power, Akagi comes with the exclusive "Salaryman" pilot skillnote Upon level up, for every 10 enemy units destroyed or completing the map, pilot earns +3 pilot points. If players use the Dai-Guard and get enough kills with it, Akagi can easily outclass every other pilot in the game due to the loads of pilot points he has earned. The machine's secondary pilots have healing Spirit Commands too, which help cancel out its Glass Cannon status, not to mention it can resupply itself AND if Akagi hits Ace status, he gains access to the cheapest "Soul" in the team (while still being a super).

Note its status as frail mainly comes from the first time using it where its armor value is much lower than normal (a decent amount but it's no Mazinger).

In fact, give Akagi "Continuous Action" in the first quarter of the game. Throw in some other skills like "Dash" and "Bullet Save" to make up for the Dai-Guard's weaknesses and some parts (such as a "Haro"note In Hakai-hen, "Haro" parts grant +2 movement, +45 mobility, +25 weapon accuracy, +1 weapon range) and it'll turn into a Lightning Bruiser capable of single-handedly pushing through half of the map in scenarios.

In the case for the Gurren Lagann, despite losing Kamina, players will likely have stored enough pilot points to give Simon "Continuous Action" and "EN Save". Note while Simon is a half-decent pilot, admittedly with one of the best blitz machines in Hakai-hen, he's more useful once he aqcuires his "Ace Bonus", granting him 150 Will at the beginning of each sortie.

Forget about the Shin Getter: regular old Getter Robo is already a strong candidate for the best unit in the game. It has amazing, powerful attacks, coupled with primary pilot Ryouma Nagare having access to the "Drive" Spirit Command for the same cost as "Spirit/Yell", alongside the Getter's "Full Upgrade Bonus" of being able to change forms post-movement, which means Getter-2, with Hayato Jin knowing "Dash" and casting "Accelerate", can move 11 spaces across the map, then switching to Getter-1 or Getter-3 to dish out the hurt. Combine this with "Support Attack" or "Enable" on Musashi Tomoei for added utility and players have a unit that can easily handle Mook clearing, support attacking and boss killing all-in-one.

Still, the Shin Getter in late-game scenarios count, where achieving Ryouma's "Ace Bonus" grants him an additional 30% damage at 150 Will, making him capable of dealing the highest raw damage in the game. This is slightly Nerfed in Saisei-hen where his "Ace Bonus" will only activate at 170 Will. It doesn't hurt that Ryouma learns "Will Limit Break" naturally.

Godmars is pretty unstoppable in its combined mode, especially since its last appearance made it practically uselessnote Not only does the armor coding bug in Destiny give Godmars next-to-no defense in a game where getting Takeru Myojin shot down is an instant game over, but his stats, coupled with him having some not-so-helpful Spirit Commands (to put it short, his set is offensive-based; most super robot pilots come with "Iron Wall" for tanking necessities, something Takeru doesn't do at all), and the risk of forced deployments, alongside having the second most powerful Combination Attack in Destiny, makes Godmars near pointless. The starting mecha Gaia (which has to reach 130 Will before transforming without its "Full Upgrade Bonus") actually HELPS because it can dodge to a degree and take a few hits as well as having strong attacks. Most importantly, once Gaia changes to Godmars, it's given full HP/EN regeneration. At the same time, Takeru has a set of good stats, with an "Ace Bonus" that grants him the "SP Regeneration" pilot skill.

An unexpected tanking god would be the Sandrock and its Mid Seasonupgrade in Saisei-hen. Normally it has a good armor stat and a shield, but its "Full Upgrade Bonus" pushes its armor rating beyond that of Mazinger. Add on some defensive skills for Quatre Raberba Winner ("Guard", "Support Defend"note Pilot can provide defensive support to an adjacent ally, "Prevail") and players will have a unit that can tank alongside the toughest super robots. Note the Sandrock's not exactly lacking in offense or speed either, since Quatre's "Ace Bonus" is getting +10 to Will anytime he triggers "Support Attack" or "Support Defend".

Second Super Robot Wars Z: Saisei-hen

Saisei-hen introduces various emblems as equippable parts and players can receive one of each after completing various requirements. What makes them game breakers are the effects they allow.

Saisei-hen brings back "SP Regeneration" (which wasn't available for purchase as a skill in Hakai-hen) and adds the new "SP Get" pilot skillnote Pilot recovers 10 Spirit Points every time they destroy an enemy. Can activate multiple times per turn but only once per combat action (MAP attacks don't count). Oh, and both stack; do the math.

Lelouch can easily become this in Saisei-hen between the Shinkirou's "Absolute Protection Territory" unit abilitynote At 110 Will, negate all damage below 4000, its powerful "Phase Transition Cannon" MAP attack, and his "Ace Bonus"note The area of effect for Lelouch's exclusive pilot skill "Tactical Command" is increased by 2. At 150 Will, a random Spirit Command will auto-cast on the pilot at the beginning of the player's turn; this includes Spirit Commands the pilot doesn't have access to normally. While the Shinkirou's "Absolute Protection Territory" costs a jarring 30 EN per activation, it's possible to make it cost zero (no pun intended) with its "Full Upgrade Bonus". Finally, give Lelouch "Support Defend" and the Shinkirou becomes an awesome tanking unit.

Suzaku Kururugi in his Lancelot Albion is also a beast, moreso after he reaches Ace status. He gets the unique skill "Curse of Geass"note At 130 Will, gain a max level "Prevail" and deal an additional 10% damage. His "Ace Bonus"? "Curse of Geass" activates regardless of Will. It doesn't hurt the Albion is a very powerful unit and Suzaku's "Soul" costs 40 Spirit Points (by default, it costs 60). Unfortunately, he's only available in the last stretch of the game.

Kallen Kozuki is available early in Saisei-hen, and for those who used her in Hakai-hen should know how strong she is already, until she receives her final, mandatory upgrade to the Guren. It's still a size "S" unit with "S" ranks in air, high mobility, a barrier, and its "Radiation Wave Emitter" attack rivals other protagonists' units, while it's one of the least EN-using strongest attacks for a unit in the roster. The only problem is it's still an EN drainage in Hakai-hen, but like the Aquarion this can be fixed with parts.

The "Zero System" Took a Level in Badass in Saisei-hennote At 130 Will, raise all of the pilot's stats; stats increase as pilot's Will increases. In contrast to its use in previous SRWs, the system no longer gives a preset number of pilot stat increases upon activation; instead, stat gains depend on the pilot's Will level. Therefore, the Zero System at 150 Will yields greater increases than at 130 Will (moreso if the pilot has "Will Limit Break" and reaches 170 Will). Combine this with skills dependent on the pilot's skill stat (such as "Attack Again" and "Counter"), players will have a Wing Gundam Zero Double Tapping almost all bosses.

When compared against Chirico's "Abnormal Survivor", the "Zero System" is a much more Simple, yet Awesome equivalent, since it doesn't require unit HP to be below a certain threshold ("Abnormal Survivor" only kicks in at 10% HP or less). Also, Heero's "Ace Bonus" allows him to activate the "Zero System" at 110 Will; one relatively common part or skill later and the "Zero System" is permanently active immediately when sortied, albeit at a low level.

What makes the Wing Zero a gamebreaker in Saisei-hen, especially those who perform a "no upgrades, no pilot points and achieve all SR Points" run is its two MAP attacks, which makes certain SR Point requirements like "defeat all enemies in # turns" a lot easier. Both MAP weapons come with 3 rounds and its "Rolling Buster Rifle" MAP attack can be used post-movement, which makes setting up MAP attacks without "Continuous Action" a lot easier.

00 Raiser carries a 7700 power post-movement Raiser Sword with a 2-6 range and a MAP variant of the attack with 12 range, alongside the machine's "Afterimage" ability. It helps that Setsuna F. Seiei is a much better pilot in Saisei-hen and eventually gets the unique skill "Innovator"note At 140 Will, +20 to accuracy/evasion/skill stats and regenerate 10 Spirit Points per turn. For further game breaking, "Innovator" stacks with "SP Regeneration" and "SP Get", meaning at least 30 Spirit Points per turn.

Also take note of Setsuna's "Ace Bonus"note Deal 50% additional damage to Gundams or GN Drive-equipped units; it stacks with "Valor" or "Soul". Needless to say, when it comes to Mobile Suit Gundam 00 units, it'll easily be a Curb-Stomp Battle against them with Setsuna.

The "Ace Bonus" for Esther Elhaas turns her "Valor" Spirit Command into "Love" with the same casting cost as "Valor". In order words, players get the full effects of "Love" for the low, efficient cost of 40 Spirit Points, beating out the likes of Irmgard Kazahara in Original Generation, who also has "Love" but at the slightly higher cost of 45. Unfortunately, Esther learns "Valor" as her last Spirit Command, which is only available after Scenario 46.

Ozma Lee, due to his "Ace Bonus" doubling the effects of both the "Fire Bomber CD" equippable partnote +3 to pilot Will per turn and Basara's songs. Have Basara sing "Try Again" to Ozma with "Valor" and watch his stat boost go through the roof (+60 to Melee/Ranged/Skill, +120 to Accruacy/Defense/Evasion). Such a boost also means his "Attack Again" pilot skill instantly becomes practical, even if his level is way behind that of enemies. Naturally, the developers were likely aware of this, as he joins the party before the Macross Frontier finale.

Third Super Robot Wars Z: Jigoku-hen

Like the bazaar from Alpha Gaiden and Z, Jigoku-hen offers the "D-Trader", an in-game shop where the player can buy equippable parts by trading in "Z-Chips", earned through defeating enemies or completing optional scenario objectives. Some of these parts are so powerful it can turn an allied unit into Nigh Invulnerable, as if the player was using cheat codes. Take "Auto Defensor" for example: it grants a 100% chance of activating "Sword Cut"note Pilot gains a chance of negating missile-/sword-based attacks if using a unit with a sword-based weapon; chance of activation improves with each level upwards to level 9 and activates based on the pilot's skill stat, grants the pilot skill "Spiritual Fortitude"note Negate "Stat Halving", "Action Stop", "Will Reduction" and "Spirit Point Reduction" status effects. The Spirit Command "Daunt" cannot reduce the pilot's Will below 100 and disables the effects of "evasion decay" and "placement bonus"note If a unit is surrounded on two sides by enemies, increase damage taken by 5%; if surrounded on all four sides, increase damage taken by 10%. This applies to allied and enemy units, all in one. While "D-Trader" parts are incredibly expensive, require in-game actions to be unlocked for purchase, and "Z-Chips" being difficult to earn, the trade-off is still too gamebreaking for its own good.

On the other hand, the "Team Enhancement Systems" are the real gamebreakers in Jigoku-hen. These systems are also unlocked in the "D-Trader" for purchase, except when the player discovers what they are: permanent game mechanics. "System ZCI" grants "Z-Chips" equal to the number of enemy pilots killed multiplied by five at the end of the scenario, "System DME" repays credits via one-twentieth of total damage dealt to enemies in the scenario and "System TEU" starts all teams with an additional five Will and a level to the "Tag Tension System"note A "team" of two alllied units can perform special actions if their "Tag Tension Gauge" is full, such as performing an additional action, doubling the amount of pilot points/"Z-Chips" earned in the next attack, recovering Spirit Points or performing a "Maximum Break". Talk about bringing carnage to foes and reaping so much benefits, afterwards.

One notorious part in the D-Trader, "Chimera Membership Card", breaks the game due to its effects in conjunction with certain pilots, specifically those with the "Will Limit Break" pilot skill. The part increases Will limit by 30, allowing those with "Will Limit Break" to reach 200; unfortunately, it doesn't stack with certain pilot and unit abilities that cap at 170 Will, such as "Spiral Power" and "Lambda Driver" for the ARX-7 Arbalest. However, the Zero System is excluded from this cap; in other words, expect one of the largest stat and damage increases for the Wing Zero's pilot when they reach 200 Will.

Another notable "D-Trader" part is "Tension Raiser". The "Tag Tension Gauge" increases if a unit in an allied team destroys two or more enemies or a pilot within the team levels up. With this equipped, if the "Tag Tension Gauge" increases, it earns an additional level to the Gauge. Provided the allied team can destroy enemies or level up its pilots, the "Tag Tension Gauge" will always be at maximum, enabling an infinite number of actions for the team before the player ends their turn.

If the part is given to Kei using the Orguss, the unit becomes a gamebreaker yet again: because the machine's ALL Attacks are powerful, with long range and high ammo count, it's possible to clear the scenario of enemies, including reinforcements AND the scenario boss on the first player turn singlehandedly. Yes, players have done it. To give you an idea of this, in Scenario 52 of the "Defy Destiny" Route, the SR Point requires 80 enemies and the Solar Aquarion destroyed in 4 turns. At least one player has provided proof of achieving this on the first player turn using only the Orguss.

The fact one of the new choices in a "Full Upgrade Bonus" for Jigoku-hen is an additional parts slot invalidates every other available choice. There's almost no situation in this game where an extra equippable part doesn't outweigh any other option players have.

Also, allied units earn their exclusive "Custom Bonus" upon reaching 50% of upgrades (and may still select the traditional "Full Upgrade Bonus" at 100%). In Jigoku-hen, this costs roughly 25% of the funds required to reach a full upgrade.

As with the previous game, the Wing Zero Custom once again can clear maps with its post-movement MAP attack "Rolling Buster Rifle", making it the easiest way of acquiring the "Bronze Emblem". Combined with the "Tag Tension System" and being able to perform an additional action once the "Tag Tension Gauge" reaches maximum, it becomes more of a Self-Imposed Challengenot to use the "Rolling Buster Rifle". Best of all, giving Heero the "Bullet Save" skill increases the "Rolling Buster Rifle's" ammo count from 3 to 5, almost double the amount of times it can be used before having to be resupplied.

Likewise, the "Radiation Wave Emitter" from Kallen's Gurren SEITEN 8 Elements becomes a post-movement MAP attack in Jigoku-hen and arrives extremely early in a playthrough. Utilizing these two units to solo scenarios is relatively easy; additionally, once the Big O returns to the party and players unlock its "Custom Bonus", they add a third post-movement MAP attack in the form of the Big O's "Plasma Gimmick".

Even though Kazumi Amano doesn't appear in Jigoku-hen, Noriko Takaya and the Gunbuster remains a size "2L" unit decked with a high armor rating, wide range of weapons and the "Inertial Canceller" unit ability note Negate all damage below 2000. However, when players unlock Noriko's "Ace Bonus"note At 150 Will, gain a "miracle" (automatically cast the Spirit Commands "Soul" (in Jigoku-hen, "Soul" deals 2.2 times the damage instead), "Love", "Courage" (gain the effects of "Accelerate", "Strike", "Iron Wall", "Spirit/Yell", "Assail" and "Valor"), "Zeal", "Focus", "Guard", "Snipe" (increase weapon range for all attacks except MAP weapons by 2 for the next attack), "Strike" and "Fighting Spirit" (the next attack will be a Critical Hit)), all the accumulated Spirit Commands allows her to deal the most damage in a single turn, making her one of the best boss killers through to the endgame. Unfortunately, like its previouscounterparts, EN drainage is still its primary weakness.

In case the description for Noriko's "Ace Bonus" is confusing, the "miracle" grants Noriko the effects of "Soul", "Valor" and "Zeal". That means players can use Noriko to hit a boss for 2.2 times the damage for the first attack, then hit it again via "Zeal" with "Valor" for twice the damage. With the "miracle" exhausted, provided Noriko is in an allied team with someone who has "Zeal", Noriko can cast her untouched Spirit Commands for a third attack. While she may not have a damage-boosting "Ace Bonus" like Ryouma or Simon, for one turn, she can outdamage anyone on the roster.

At the same time, the "D-Trader" offers the part "Piece of Miracle", which has the same effect as Noriko's "Ace Bonus", but can be used by anyone at any time. Needless to say this little strategy is the most effective way of destroying a boss.

A minor tune-up to Godmars in Jigoku-hen makes it a VERY respectable attacker throughout the game. The machine gains the unit ability "ESP Amplification"note +100 to weapon attack power for every "ESP" pilot skill level (increase accuracy/evasion rates for every level) the pilot has. Once Takeru receives his "Ace Bonus"note Turn into a "Super A-Class ESP" (automatically achieve a level 9 "ESP" pilot skill; regenerate 10 Spirit Points per turn), this buffs the Godmars even more. To give a better picture of this, if all allied mecha have 50% of upgrades to their units and weapons (while disregarding any parts), Godmars' base attack power for its strongest weapon is 6200, 100 points higher than the Shin Getter's "Stoner Sunshine" and 200 points higher than the Gurren Lagann's "Giga Drill Break". With all things considered, however, Takeru still loses to Ryouma due to his "Ace Bonus" and what the titular Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann can do just goes through the roof in the final scenario.

Even before the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann appears, the preceding Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann is overpowering by proxy of its "3L" size, granting it a large boost to damage and defense against every Mook in the game until the last scenario. Naturally, the mandatory upgrade to the Gurren Lagann is its Tengen Toppa-incarnation, backed by boatloads of HP, Simon's new "Spirit Power Infinity" pilot skillnote Gain the effects of a maximum level "Spiral Power" pilot skill (increase accuracy and reduce damage dealt; the effect rises with the skill's level). At 130 Will, increase Pilot Points earned by 20%, high movement rate and tons of sub-pilots for a Spirit Command pool. Finally, the Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann's strongest attack is more powerful than any other in the game by over 1000 points, all for a very reasonable amount of energy.

So the Aquarion broke Z and the Second Z; think it can't do it in Jigoku-hen? Think again; the first thing players will realize regarding the Aquarion EVOL is all three pilots can be changed at will during a scenario (players also don't need to manually switch to particular pilot patterns for using attacks like the previous games, either; the specific pilots just appear during those attacks). Additionally, each Aquarion EVOL pilot has the "Element Ability" pilot skill: upon reaching 130 Will, the Aquarion gains attributes depending on the lead pilot. However, after a particular story event early in the game, the effects of their "Element Ability" will be applied to the machine even if they're not the lead pilot. Given the number of Aquarion EVOL pilots available in Jigoku-hen, it's possible to give the unit a set of three ridiculous attributes such as all weapons lowering enemy armor rating, gaining small HP/EN regeneration, "Double Image", 100% activation rate for "Counter" or ignore any terrain restrictions.

Additionally, unlocking the "Ace Bonus" for each pilot will (in most cases) cause their Element Ability's effect to be applied to Aquarion's teammate as well! What offsets this is training the pilots to reach Ace status being difficult (including earning pilot points): for starters, Amata Sora and Mikono Suzushiro begin with zero kills and only three of the thirteen Aquarion EVOL characters can be issued sub-orders via the "Sub-Order System"note Players can assign 6 unsortied characters to different categories and receive bonuses at the end of a scenario, such as pilot points, kills, experience points or credits. However, as a general purpose unit, most players agree this "Element Ability" setup is worth it.

As this video demonstrates, due to Lelouch's new "Ace Bonus" in Jigoku-hen granting him 3 Pilot Points for every allied unit affected by his character-exclusive "Tactical Command" ability, given the time to grind, he can become the strongest character in the game with maxed out stats, "S" ranks for terrain adaptability and the necessary pilot skills players want for him.

Kira and the Strike Freedom's new MAP attack due in part because of its range, making it comparable to the "Seven Swell". Unlike the latter, this MAP attack comes loaded with two rounds (three, if Kira is given the "Bullet Save" pilot skill) and Kira has access to "Soul". Finally, purchase "Hit & Away" for Kira, pair him up with a pilot that has the "Zeal" Spirit Command and it's entirely possible for him to solo an entire scenario.

Third Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-hen

The Gundam Double X and its renovated "Twin Satellite Cannon", thanks to the system being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: prior to the Z series, none of the games bothered to mention whether the moon appears in a scenario, since it determines if the weapon can be used or not. Furthermore, in Z and the Second Z, a number of turns are required to pass in order for the weapon to become available for use from the start of the scenario; Tengoku-hen allows its use so long as Garrod reaches the minimum Will requirement, and the weapon comes pre-loaded from the start of any scenario. Finally, the time it takes for the weapon to be used again is overhauled: one turn if the moon is out, two if it isn't. Post-Scenario 33, the Twin Satellite Cannon can be used every turn. Oh, and they added Tifa back as a sub-pilot for Garrod.

Turn A Gundam still has the "Moonlight Butterfly" in this game, and Loran's "Ace Bonus"note Start with maximum Spirit Points upon deployment (compared to previous games, all pilots in the Third Z start with half their Spirit Points) allows him build up enough Will to fire off the attack from the start of scenarios. What's new this time is the "Moonlight Butterfly" isn't simply an attack for the Turn A, but also comes as a separate menu command: provided its pilot reaches 130 Will, this command can be used to absorb all enemy EN within a 10-panel range by 300, while fully restoring the Turn A's EN pool.

It can't be stated how ludicrous this command is: not only is it Friendly Fireproof, it completely gimps certain scenarios as Mooks who rely solely on EN-based weaponry are effectively denied a chance to attack; not even bosses are immune to this. The exception are the Original Generation bosses as they almost always have access to an ammunition-based MAP weapon at their disposal. Having no other choice, they will use it twice or even three times in a row when their turn rolls around.

If that isn't enough, the D-Trader item "DEC Charger" note Recovers all EN at the beginning of every turn can render the Turn A's EN consumption issues moot.

ARX-8 Laevatein doesn't disappoint with its debut: despite the change to the "ECS" unit abilitynote Begin a scenario with the "Alert", "Fighting Spirit" and "Assail" Spirit Commands in effect in the Z saga, the Laevatein remains a size "S", while the "Lambda Driver"note In the Z saga, at 130 Will, increase unit accuracy, mobility, armor rating and final damage output as the pilot's Will increases gives Sousuke (who has exceptional stats) an additional buff (on top of his "Ace Bonus"note +10 to all stats), retains its damage-reducing barrier, and the Arbalest's problem of dealing with long-ranged attacks is eased with its "Demolition Gun-Howizter" (which also comes with a MAP version). Once it acquires the mandatory "XL-3 Emergency Booster", the Laevatein can not only fly, but provides an extra Hit Point bar a la the Black Serena from Reversal, and an expanded arsenal.

One of the new items in the D-Trader is the "Fox Mask", which provides the same effects as Loran's "Ace Bonus", meaning two pilots at maximum Spirit Points right off the bat. If given to other pilots on the roster who can take advantage of their unit's MAP weapon, so long as they have Spirit Commands that increases their Will to reach the MAP weapon requirement, players will likely spend the first few turns of a scenario MAP nuking enemies, making it trivial when earning SR Points that demands clearing the map of all enemies in the fewest turns.

The new "Sphere Act" system used by the Original Generation. At 150 Will, each original grants +10 to a specific stat for all allied pilots in the scenario (evasion for Setsuko, defense for Rand, accuracy for Crowe and skill for Hibiki). Not only does this bonus last for the duration of the scenario, but it stacks with other stat bonuses, such as Basara's "Try Again" song. For additional breakage, the originals acquire this as early as Scenario 29, halfway into a play-through, and is fully unlocked for each of them by Scenario 32. Needless to say, having the four of them in the party for scenarios is almost a given. However, since Tengoku-hen is a straight example of Sequel Difficulty Spike, some may argue such treatment is good, but not nearly gamebreaking enoughnote For one, enemy Sphere Acts also affect allied units, and their requirement is at a lower 140 Will.

Tengoku-hen introduces the "Z-Crystal" system, essentially replacing the "Team Enhancement Systems" of the D-Trader in Jigoku-hen in favor of permanent tier-based perks via upgrading the Z-Crystal using Z-Chips to higher grades. While the effects of each grade aren't necessarily deadly, if players start a new game with link bonuses from Jigoku-hen and Rengoku-hen save data, they can unlock all 5 grades of the Z-Crystal by selling a "Repair Kit" equippable part through the D-Trader...after the first scenario.

Invariably, this makes the Original Generation battleship Solarian one of the best support units in the game, as its "D-Command" system and its special commands are tied down to the current grade of the Z-Crystal. For the most part, the commands are decent, ranging from maintaining the "Tactical Combo Gauge" from decreasing, teleporting allied teams closer to the unit, to refilling the "Tag Tension Gauge" and granting the closest thing to the "Enable" Spirit Commandnote The Third Z removes the "Enable" Spirit Command entirely due to the "Tag Tension System" plus half of those who have the "Zeal" command are sub-pilots, thus limiting players options., including resetting the effects of the "Platinum Emblem" equippable part. Oh, and this unit grants the same effects as Noriko's "Ace Bonus" as its strongest D-Command. The only drawback to this system is players can only choose one command per turn, with each command at each grade limited to a single use per scenario. Fortunately, issuing D-Commands does not use up a turn.

Late in the game, after a mandatory event in Scenario 56, all allied characters automatically gain "Shinka"note Maximum Will +50, maximum Spirit Points +50, increase base damage to all unit weaponry by 2000. Players don't have to do anything; this permanent status effect simply drops onto their laps with absolutely no strings attached.

Hibiki Kamishiro, no thanks to the "Insaraum's Secret Treasure"note Casts the "Love" Spirit Command once per scenario D-Trader part. As a result of a Good Bad Bug, this consumable part can be used three times in one scenario by using it first as the Genion, then immediately transforming into the Genion GAI, which retains the part; transforming a second time into the Geminion Ray still retains it, with the additional effect of a damage increase due to the Geminion Ray changing from a size "M" to a size "L" unit. Furthermore, Insaraum's Secret Treasure costs a mere 3500 Z-Chips in the D-Trader, with an easy unlock requirement of obtaining 10000 Z-Chips in total, thus doubling the part as a Disc-One Nuke. Finally, give Hibiki the "Parts Supply" pilot skillnote Consumable parts can be used on the pilot's teammate or on a member of an adjacent team to give nearby allied characters in a good position to use a MAP attack a boost.

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